Often people with hearing loss who have been prescribed a hearing aid worry about how they will get used to it. Don’t worry, today you can contact specialists who will help you undergo adaptation. Also quite common is strange and even uncomfortable sensations among those who wear the device for the first time. This is completely normal, your ears just need time to get used to the device. This usually takes from several days to 3 months.
Basic rules for using a hearing aid
It is important to understand that this device is intended strictly for individual use. It must be selected by an audiologist and have official certification. If you have already purchased a hearing aid, it cannot be returned. To make adaptation easier, you must strictly follow all the doctor’s recommendations.
Key rules for using a hearing aid:
- The earmold is made individually and must exactly follow the anatomical contours of the ear; it is important that it fits tightly to the walls of the ear canal
- The individual liner must be made of environmentally friendly hypoallergenic material
- The hearing aid requires careful care and regular cleaning.
If you have bilateral hearing loss, you need to wear two devices - on each ear, this will ensure comfortable perception of sounds and quick adaptation
How does adaptation to a hearing aid proceed?
Modern devices for hearing correction are able to open up to the user the entire versatility of the world of sounds. But at the same time, at the first stage, wearing it often causes discomfort due to:
- Perception of previously unknown sounds
- Foreign body sensation in the ear
- Unusual perception of your voice
- Signal volume boost
To a person with hearing loss who has not previously worn a hearing aid, many sounds may be unfamiliar. And when auditory rehabilitation begins, he hears them for the first time. This can be very surprising and discouraging, especially since his memory cannot yet identify these sensations. It will take time for them to integrate into his picture of the world.
Another common complaint of first-time hearing aid users is that sounds seem too loud. Usually this is felt for the first 2-3 days, then addiction occurs.
How to make adaptation to a hearing aid more comfortable? Firstly, at the initial stage it is not recommended to wear it all day. start with 2 hours, gradually increasing the wearing interval. At the same time, try to “test” the device each time in different acoustic environments. In general, it usually takes about a week to get used to this device.
Adaptation is more difficult for people whose hearing problems are caused by disorders of the cardiovascular system or musculoskeletal system. They will need the help of a specialist who will support them at every stage of auditory adaptation. It is important to understand that the sooner you suspect that you have hearing loss and contact an audiologist, the greater the chances of successful compensation for hearing loss and easy adaptation to a hearing aid.
A person's hearing does not get better over the years, but only worsens. Unfortunately, older people often suffer from hearing loss to varying degrees or lose their hearing completely. Young patients, and sometimes even children, are also susceptible to hearing loss. With varying degrees of hearing loss, only one thing can help: wearing a hearing aid. Let's try to figure out how to choose a hearing aid, and whether everyone can use it.
How to choose a hearing aid
First, you need to decide which hearing aid model is right for you: in-ear or behind-the-ear.
In-the-ear hearing aids are virtually invisible. They are made according to the individual characteristics of the patient. First, a hearing care specialist makes an impression of the auricle, and only then, based on it, a hearing aid is made. Unfortunately, such models have their drawbacks:
- they require careful and regular care;
- they should not be used in patients with excessive ear wax or a tendency to inflammation of the outer ear;
- they have low power and miniature sizes, which are inconvenient for older people.
BTE hearing aids are more versatile. They can be used by both children and adults with varying degrees of hearing loss. Modern manufacturers produce devices in stylish and varied designs, so choosing a device in accordance with personal preferences is not difficult. In addition, such a hearing aid does not require constant care, it is comfortable to wear and practical. This model is most suitable for an elderly person.
Hearing aid: contraindications
The second question that interests people with varying degrees of hearing loss is whether there are conditions under which wearing a hearing aid is prohibited. In general, there are no absolute contraindications for using the device. The relative ones include:
- Pathological conditions that require clarification of the diagnosis: otosclerosis, suspected retrocochlear pathology, sudden manifestation of hearing loss of unknown etiology, etc.
- Acute sensorineural hearing loss, which is more than 4 or 6 months old;
- Some forms of conductive hearing loss that can be corrected with surgery.
- Various inflammations in the acute stage, including in the ear.
- Neurological disorders.
- Epilepsy.
- Complex mental disorders.
- Impaired cerebral circulation in the acute stage.
In these conditions, the installation of a hearing aid is either not carried out at all, or is postponed until the patient is completely cured.
To be sure whether you can use a hearing aid, you should contact a specialist at an audiology center. The audiologist will prescribe a series of examinations, conduct diagnostics and select hearing aids that are ideal for you. Trust your hearing to professionals!
Published: September 18, 2012Budanov Evgeniy Gennadievich: Candidate of Medical Sciences, audiologist, otorhinolaryngologist (ENT)
Once again I am communicating with the relatives of an elderly visitor who has difficulty hearing in both ears. According to his relatives, he had to be forcibly dragged to the audiologist’s office and to get hearing aids. I find out that the main difficulty was to convince the elderly patient of the very need to have his hearing checked. As always, his arguments against are words about the poor diction of those around him, the wrong announcers on TV and the poor quality of modern phones. In addition, it turns out that this patient’s hidden virtues prompted him with “practical advice” to avoid such doctors, and under no circumstances try on, much less wear, hearing aids. Otherwise your hearing will completely deteriorate! ABOUT?!
Everything would be fine, but the main participants in the group of third-party advisers were local doctors, and not just just, but otolaryngologists and even one respectable therapist. Their main thesis was that a hearing aid is like a drug. Once you put it on, you can’t go anywhere without it, because “they get used to it, they become even more deaf, and that’s all - good for nothing!” It would be so funny if I weren’t very sad for my fellow doctors.
From my own experience, I have already become convinced that in 90% or more cases these anti-Soviets (from the word “advice”, the Soviet government has nothing to do with it) have neither seen nor heard of these devices. Their words, with which they scare away their elderly and even (which is generally bad) young patients from a completely civilized hearing aid procedure, sound like they are from the world of myths and legends. The fact is that all the arguments against hearing aids come from an era when these devices were large or even very large, and were analog; and such concepts as individual selection, programmable hearing aids, AGC, input and output compression, objective verification of the gain introduced by the device have not yet even been invented or technically implemented. In the last 10-20 years, the technologies that formed the basis of hearing aids have made such a significant step forward that fears about the possible harm of their use should be almost all refuted. Let me make a reservation right away that this statement is true for the generation of digital programmable hearing aids. In simple words, digital sound processing is designed to process the incoming sound signal in the widest range of characteristics: frequency spectrum, sound intensity (loudness), etc., which allows you to create a model of “sound behavior” of a hearing aid that will be strictly individual, fit the residual hearing as accurately as possible, giving a feeling of comfort, even with daily long-term wearing. Programmability is the very process of transferring information about a person’s hearing into complex sound processing algorithms that are embedded in the microprocessor of a hearing aid, its individual adjustment and verification of the result. As a result, we have an absolutely individual tool for compensating for hearing loss, whose parameters will not allow the device to sound excessively loud (fear of losing hearing). And the opinion about the irreparable habit of wearing a hearing aid comes from the well-known saying “you get used to good things quickly.” Having worn a high-quality, tuned, repeatedly verified device, a child, adult or elderly person no longer wants to plunge headlong into the world of muffled sounds, slurred speech and isolation from others. A child who, already at 2-3 years old, stretches himself in the morning and even turns on and puts on his devices independently is the best confirmation of this :)
Surrounded by many myths and misconceptions.
The most common of them: “spoil” perception, “damage hearing” completely, “make disabled”.
These misconceptions are not only unfounded, but also dangerous. Myths, which are very tenacious, especially in an unenlightened environment, lead to people wasting precious time postponing hearing aids until “later.” Sometimes it takes five, or even 10-15 years, from the moment of the first symptoms to contacting an audiologist. Over the years, hearing loss worsens to the point where communication with others becomes almost impossible. And only then does a person seek help...
But the brain, which remains in “silence” for a long time, loses the ability to understand speech. And the hearing aid, which has finally come to the rescue (albeit late, but still!) requires a long adaptation period. The patient is dissatisfied: the instant “miracle” did not happen! The results are not as fast or good as if hearing aids were carried out in the early stages of hearing loss. Was it worth it to endure all these years, fearing harm from hearing aids? Of course not!
Hearing cannot be “trained” or made sharper by an effort of will. We do not have a muscle in the ear that could be “pumped up”. A long history of hearing loss before seeking audiological help is a negative factor that only brings harm. An individually tuned hearing aid, after a full hearing examination, does not in any way affect the residual, “natural” hearing of a person.
Where do prejudices come from?
The reason is that users of hearing aids for whom they have been effectively selected and adjusted cannot refuse them due to psychological reasons. After a period of insufficient “audibility,” the brain returns to the world of sounds of normal volume and adapts to it. This is a trick of our perception! The mind understands how good it is to hear. He gets used to it and no longer wants to return to hearing loss. People feel that without hearing aids they hear worse than before they received hearing aids. But you need to understand: the disease leading to hearing loss, in the vast majority of cases, gradually progresses. And the hearing “falls” precisely for this reason.
Can hearing aids cause harm?
Yes, they can. If they are configured incorrectly, they are too loud, beyond human hearing. “Sound amplifiers”, which have nothing to do with hearing aids, can also cause harm.
Don't put off getting hearing aid if it's necessary. This is critically important not only for adults, but also for children whose psycho-speech development and their whole lives are at stake.
Specialists from our centers in Simferopol and Sevastopol will carry out a full range of examinations, determine the need for hearing aids, offer a large selection of hearing aids and optimally configure them, taking into account the characteristics of each patient.
