The Hearing Aid- What it can and what it cannot do

For the most common types of hearing loss, hearing aids greatly improve the perception of the surrounding sounds as well as communication with other people. In many cases, hearing aids make it possible for their users to have almost normal communication with other people in most everyday situations. Despite hearing loss, many hearing aid users are also able to take part in most of the activities they wish to do.

It is, however, important to realize that a hearing aid cannot restore normal hearing

A fundamental problem is that even though the hearing aid is capable of changing many important characteristics of the sounds that are picked up by the microphone, the processed sound signal must still pass the damaged part of the hearing pathway on its way from the output of the hearing aid to the brain. The damaged hearing can be said to impose a number of restrictions on sound perception and the hearing aid must attempt to present surrounding sounds in such a way that the most important ones are perceived without being uncomfortable to listen to. Hearing aids cannot cure your hearing loss and return your hearing to normal, however, wearing hearing aids while suffering from hearing loss has proven beneficial, improving a person’s quality of life. For instance, the hearing aid makes available a number of assisting functions, including directionality and noise suppression, which are helpful in particularly difficult situations- although they cannot normalize the sense of hearing.

In order for the hearing impaired to hear the sounds that hearing loss has made inaudible, hearing aids must amplify sounds to compensate for the hearing loss. Most often, the amplification needs to be frequency-dependent. That is, different for bass and treble sounds- and in this way, it indirectly mirrors the audiogram: the greater the hearing loss, the more amplification is needed.

With an increasing sound level, less amplification is generally needed. Therefore, the hearing aids are designed to amplify soft sounds more than loud sounds, which are given little or no amplification at all. At the same time, the hearing aids are adjusted in such a way that the user is not too often exposed to uncomfortably loud sounds.

If you are looking to have hearing aids fitted, please contact Attune Hearing on 1300 736 702 to discuss options with one of our highly-trained audiologists.