How does Hearing Aid help?
Hearing is a very complex process that starts with receiving sound signals in the ear and ends up decoding the information hidden in the brain. Normal hearing works in this manner, the outer ear collects the sound waves, which vibrate the eardrum and middle ear bones called ossicles. Thereafter the vibrations continue into the inner ear where they stimulate tiny hairs that send electrical signals to the brain.
Due to aging hearing starts to fade, hearing aid help up to a certain point and beyond that, they do not help because they cannot overcome the damage.
Does this mean hearing aid is not much helpful?
Hearing aids are not a better option for some types of hearing loss, but they are the better option for most types of hearing loss. A hearing aid just does not amplify a particular sound, it is much more precise than that. Hearing aids have the capability of amplifying certain areas that one needs and not amplifying undesired ones.
Humans with normal hearing can hear sounds all the way up to 20 Hz, which is very low frequency and up to 20,000 Hz the sounds that are considered high pitch or high-frequency sound.
What does an audiologist check before recommending a pair of hearing aid?
An audiologist figures out the severity of hearing loss by creating an audiogram. On an audiogram it is figured out the type of frequency an individual is unable to have access to. The lower the graph the poor the hearing the patient has. The range of hearing loss is categorized as – normal, mild, moderate, moderate to severe, severe and profound. Likewise, audiologist detects whether an individual suffers from a low frequency or a high frequency hearing loss.
An individual with high frequency hearing loss can hear but face difficulty in understanding speech. Individual compensate for these missing frequencies in the following manner.
- Eye Contact: speech cues are needed to interpret.
- Context: having a good context of what someone is talking.
- Hearing aids: Use them to amplify the sounds that are missed to make them accessible to the brain.
Caution: Proper amplification does not always generate clarity of speech! To ensure proper interpretation of sounds ‘word recognition’ testing is done.
With this we hope that you get a better idea of what hearing aids are actually doing. They are designed to amplify the sounds and make them accessible to brain that one needs without effecting the sounds one already wears well.
However, only way to ensure that hearing aid are giving the right amount of amplification in the right places is to have real ear measurement performed on them. Thereby hearing aids can improve the individual’s ability to hear and interpret and communicate with the world around.