Improve your Life with Hearing Aids

Choice of Hearing Aids

Are you considering a hearing aid to help you improve your quality of life? Would you like to learn more about hearing aids?

A hearing aid is an electro acoustic apparatus typically fitted in or behind the ear. It is designed to amplify and modulate sounds for the wearer. If you are having trouble hearing sounds you used to hear, have to ask people to repeat themselves or feel that your hearing is not as sharp as it used to be, it is important to discuss these concerns with your physician. Your physician may refer you to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist who can help you determine if a hearing aid may be necessary.

Types of Hearing Aids

There are wide varieties of hearing aids and they vary in power, size and circuitry. Below are the most common hearing aid types:

In The Ear Aids – Becoming far more popular in recent ears, in the ear aids fit in the outer ear bowl and are generally not visible. Each in the ear hearing aid is custom fit for an individual’s ear. Most doctors will recommend an in the ear aid for mild to severe hearing loss. When they first came out, in the ear aids weren’t used for children because their fast growth made them costly to replace regularly. However, today there are in the ear aids made from a silicone material that alleviates the need for costly replacements.

Behind the Ear Aids – Around for many years, behind the ear aids consist of a small plastic case fitting behind the ear and provides sound to the ear via air conduction of sound through a small length of tubing or electronically with a wire and miniature speaker placed in the ear canal. Behind the ear aids are recommended for patients with mild to profound hearing loss and work well for children. Today, you can get behind the ear devices with thin hair like sound tubes making them even less visible than an in the ear aid. This version can keep the air canal more open so that listeners still utilize their residual natural hearing. Doctors like to recommend these new devices for patients with high frequency loss and for those with mild to moderate hearing loss.

In the Canal – In the canal aids are small and fill the bottom half of the external ear. Used for mild to moderate hearing loss, they are not great for those with good low frequency hearing, as the occlusion effect is more perceivable.

Bone Anchored Hearing Aids – This type of hearing aid is surgically implanted. In this procedure, a titanium post is surgically embedded into the skull with a small abutment exposed outside the skin. The sound processor sits on the abutment and is able to transmit sound vibrations to the external abutment of the titanium post. It works because the implant will vibrate the skull and inner ear, then the nerve fibers are stimulated in the inner ear and hearing the occurs!