Hearing Loss & Hearing Aid Facts

The most common fact about hearing aids is that they help people hear, and almost everyone has heard of hearing aids. But there are some other cool facts about hearing aids that you might not know.

Quick hearing loss facts:

• Forty-eight million people in the United States have hearing loss.
• Two in three people over 75 have age-related hearing loss.
• One in three people over the age of 65 have a hearing loss of varying degrees.

Hearing Aids Don’t Cure Hearing Loss

This one might be surprising, as many people think that fitting a hearing aid is the cure to hearing loss. While hearing aids don’t cure hearing loss, they significantly improve the quality of life.

What hearing aids do is treat hearing loss, and in most cases, hearing loss can be treated with modern-day technologies.

Mild Hearing Loss Can Still Need a Hearing Aid

The longer that hearing loss goes on untreated, the more common it is for the brain to work overtime to look for sounds it can’t hear and further to that – forget what everyday things sound like.

The brain expends a lot of energy to process these things, and it can cause severe cognitive decline over several years. Even the mildest hearing loss can significantly benefit from hearing aids, although you will discuss this with your hearing instrument specialist (HIS) to see if this is the right course of treatment.

Invisible Heroes

One of the main concerns people have when speaking about hearing aids is large and prominent. Hearing loss can affect all ages, and now we have hearing aids that are invisible unless you are looking for them.

Hearing aids come in various colors and styles, some to match hair color and others to be tucked inside the ear. The vast range of hearing aids means that you can find a hearing aid to meet your needs no matter what type you want.

Each hearing aid has some pros and cons, so you’ll need to work with your hearing instrument specialist to get the hearing air.

Hearing Aids That a HIS Has Not Issued May Have Incorrect Settings and Fit Poorly

When you begin to use the hearing aids that you purchased online, you may find that you cause damage to the skin around the ears – since you will be unsure what the materials for the hearing aid are.

How Do Hearing Aids Work?

A hearing aid is a battery-powered device that fits in the ear canal or around the ear. It takes sounds and makes them louder and more prominent for the user.

Here is how they work:

• The microphone picks up the noise around you
• The sound is made louder by an amplifier
• A receiver then delivers these amplified sounds to the ear

Hearing aids are used to improve speech comprehension and hearing. Usually, the user may have damaged sensory cells in the inner ear. Hearing loss due to injury is called sensorineural hearing loss. It is thought that as many as one in five people who have mild hearing loss could benefit from using a hearing aid.

Types of hearing aids

You can benefit from using many types of hearing aid; the hearing aid you choose will be based on your lifestyle and hearing needs.

Canal hearing aids fit, as the name suggests, into the ear canal. They come in two styles. Completely in the canal and in the canal. Completely-in-canal is almost invisible as it sits totally within the ear canal.

In-the-ear hearing aids fit completely in the outer bowl. They are used for mild-to-severe hearing loss. A hard plastic case houses the electronic components. They are often fitted with telecoils used where you see the induction loop systems—airports, shopping centers, airports and schools.

Behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids are made of a hard plastic case that sits behind the ear, connecting to a plastic earmold. The part behind the ear stores the electronics – using this hearing aid, the sound travels into the earmold and into the ear.

There are also hearing aids that can be linked to smartphones, which gives an even more enjoyable addition. All of the options can be discussed with your hearing professional – so you get the right hearing aid for you.

If you want to discuss your hearing aid options, call Sound Choice Hearing today at (505) 565-7960