Mankato Clinic, Children’s Museum partner on screenings to promote ear health | Local News

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Mankato Clinic, Children’s Museum partner on screenings to promote ear health | Local News

MANKATO — Tympanometer in hand, Colleen Vitzthum checked for movement of Laine Kearney’s eardrum Thursday.

Vitzthum, a Mankato Clinic audiologist, was performing a test known as tympanometry on the 2-year-old as part of a hearing screening night at the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota. The tympanometer measures an eardrum’s movement by applying pressure in the ear canal.

The test is an important tool for measuring ear health, Vitzthum said.

“If the eardrum isn’t moving very well it means there’s some sort of problem, usually fluid back behind there, sometimes a hole in the eardrum, or impacted earwax,” she said. “It’s one of the first tests we do just to get a baseline.”

In an ear canal the eardrum acts as a wall. Ear infections or hearing problems can occur when fluid breaches the wall and gets into air-filled space inside it.

It happens to most children, according to data from the National Institutes of Health showing 5 in 6 children get an ear infection by age 3.

Vitzthum joined Dr. Susan Pearson, a pediatric ear, nose and throat physician at Mankato Clinic for the educational event in partnership with the Children’s Museum. Pearson sees the screenings as a way to help make children more comfortable with health care visits, while educating their parents and guardians about a common issue they’re likely to see in their child.

Laine kept calm throughout her screening. MacKenzie Kearney, Laine’s mom, said the 2-year-old is at a point where she isn’t afraid of going to the doctor.

“I told her they’re checking ears like they do at the doctor and she said she wanted to come over here,” she said.

As a parent, MacKenzie said she appreciated the screening being at the museum. Laine got ear tubes to prevent fluid build up a little after turning 1 year old, so her family knows the importance of keeping up on ear health.

Molly Ambrose said she knows her 9-month-old son, Henry, may need tubes. The boy’s two older siblings needed them, and Molly was thinking about bringing him in for an appointment anyway when she saw the screening was happening.

“Having the accessibility without having to make an appointment and schedule everything is really convenient,” she said.

Previous partnerships brought immunization and oral health screening clinics to the museum. A hearing screening goes right along with the museum’s mission to be a catalyst for well-being in children, said Kim Kleven, vice president of play and learning.

“When we can break down barriers for our families to have access to that it’s a good partnership,” she said.


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