What have you heard about hearing aids?
Hearing aids have not yet entered the mass market, and as a result, many people carry misconceptions about the life-restoring devices. We’ve put together a short article, highlighting a few of the most common misinterpretations people make. Here is Hearing Healthcare Centre’s Fact vs Fiction!
1) Hearing aids are bulky and obvious – Fact Or Fiction?
The Fiction: Many people today still believe hearing aids to be their bulky, chunky predecessors from earlier on.
The Fact: This is simply not the case. All modern hearing aids today are very small and sleek, designed to be discreet. Most hearing aids on the market also come in a wide variety of colours, in order to blend in completely to either your skin tone or hair colour.
Extra Information: Certain types of hearing aids also hide completely within the ear canal, invisible from the outside. These are known as IICs and CICs.
2) Hearing aids are for old people – Fact or Fiction?
The Fiction: Hearing loss only occurs in the elderly, they’re the only people who need to wear hearing aids.
The Fact: Hearing loss can occur throughout any stage of your life. In some instances, even young infants wear hearing aids. Unfortunately as the world gets noisier and noisier; people are beginning to lose their hearing at a younger age. A lot of people obtain corrective glasses at a young age, so it seems strange that there is a stigma regarding young people and hearing aids.
Extra Information: By the year 2035, it is estimated that there will be 15,600,000 with hearing loss in the UK, that’s 1 in 5!
3) I’ll only need one hearing aid – Fact or Fiction?
The Fiction: Many people believe they only need the one hearing aid on their ‘worst’ ear.
The Fact: Usually, by the time most people notice their hearing loss it is already a lot worst than they realise. Hearing loss commonly develops as a result of exposure to loud noise over time, this means that in almost all cases; both ears are affected.
Extra Information: Hearing aids actually work significantly more efficiently when paired as opposed to alone. Having two hearing aids allows the devices to communicate with each other, and not only access all four microphones, but also working together to cancel out background noise. The brain is also hardwired to work with stereo sounds, similarly to how your eyes work better together than having one when it comes to understanding our 3D world. Ears are very similar, and your brain will interpret sound much better when coming from a stereo source.
4) Hearing aids didn’t work for my friend, they won’t work for me – Fact or Fiction
The Fiction: Many people believe that because hearing aids may not have worked for their friends or family, that they also will not work for the individual.
The Fact: Nobody’s hearing is the same, and different people will require different frequencies amplified at different levels. In fact, there are too many variables to count! If hearing aids didn’t work for someone you know, it doesn’t mean they won’t work for you!
Extra Information: Most hearing centres offer a ‘trial period’ whereby clients can go away with hearing aids for usually a couple of weeks, and test whether or not they work for them.
5) Buying Hearing Aids online – Fact or Fiction
The Fiction: People don’t need to bother going to see audiologists, they can just pick up a cheap hearing aid online!
The Fact: Buying hearing aids online sounds too good to be true, and that’s because it is. Hearing aids are complex medical instruments which require a trained professional not only to set up, but also to maintain the device over time. Hearing aids also need to constantly adapt to their user, for example, here at Hearing Healthcare Centre, we try to see out clients twice a year at minimum, in order to make sure their devices are optimised to their hearing levels. If you didn’t have a professional audiologist to help you, you’d probably find your ‘off the shelf’ hearing aids will lose their usability over time, as your hearing changes, and there is no audiologist to adjust them.
