Answering some of the most frequent asked questions about Hearing Aids
Background Noise
I struggle to hear people when I’m in a noisy place, for instance in a restaurant or a meeting. Will a modern digital hearing aid help me to hear clearly in the presence of background noise?
Most people do find it more challenging to hear clearly in a noisy location. Of course, the volume and clarity of the person you are trying to listen to is also an important factor. As we age we generally lose the ability to hear high-frequency sounds. This tends to make it harder to hear the beginning and ends of words. Background noise is generally low frequency so does not diminish with age. Therefore a noisy room will still sound loud as we get older, however, the beginning and ends of certain words will fade making it harder to actually distinguish what is being said. This is when we either ask the speaker to repeat themselves or we take a guess at what is being said, sometimes with embarrassing consequences!
Whilst 100% normal hearing can never be fully restored with a hearing aid, some modern hearing aids can help to boost the high-frequency sounds without boosting the background noise thus helping you to regain some clarity in the presence of noise.
Listening to the TV/Radio
I have the T.V turned up too loud, how low will I be able to watch it with a good hearing aid?
Good up to date hearing aids are very effective at enabling the wearer to listen to the T.V or radio at a greatly reduced volume level. There are also “wireless” hearing aids available that can send the T.V signal straight to the hearing aid which means you can watch the T.V as low as you want, even on muted volume!
What will the hearing aids look like?
Hearing aids range from tiny in the ear aids which are invisible once inserted into the ear canal to slightly bigger but still very discreet in the ear aids. There are also more powerful over the ear types. Hearing aids nowadays come in many different sizes and even colours. It is important to choose a hearing aid for a variety of reasons such as durability, ease of handling etc not solely on cosmetic factors.