Otoscope

Otoscope

Otoscope
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.79

Vocabulary

challenging words:

diseased, membrane, yearly, generally, exam, identify, physician, medical, harmless, attachment, fluid, portable, normally, check-up, actually, cone-shaped

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Otoscope
By Jennifer Kenny

¹     Think back to your last check-up. It would be perfectly natural to assume the doctor checked your ears. It's a normal procedure in any yearly exam as well as a common part of an exam for a sick patient. Do you know what the tool is called that the doctor uses? It is an otoscope.

²     An otoscope is a medical device used by health care professionals to look into the ears. It is a screening tool at a regular check-up just to make sure the individual has healthy ears. It is also used to check the outer ear and middle ear when a patient is complaining of symptoms such as fever, ear pain, or hearing loss.

³     An otoscope is made of two main parts, the handle and the head. The handle is obviously the part the doctor will hold by using either a pencil grip or a hammer grip. The head contains an electric eye source and a low-power magnifying lens. It also has the attachment for the ear speculum, a cone-shaped part that actually slides into the ear canal to see the eardrum. The ear speculum comes in different sizes. Why? Different people have different size canals. Children, for example, often need a narrower speculum than an adult.

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