Hearing loss has been around since the beginning of time. While it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when people began experimenting with ways to improve their hearing, (like using a cupped hand), we know that in 1588, Italian physician and scientist, Giambattista della Porta described early hearing aids in his published work Magia Naturalis1.
Needless to say, hearing aids have come a long way since their early beginning. But the principle behind hearing aids, amplification, is still considered an indispensable part of hearing loss treatment and rehabilitation.
No matter what size or styles, all hearing aids consist of these four components:
Microphones and receivers are transducers, meaning they convert energy from one form to another. The microphone gathers and converts sound into electrical signals.
Located between the microphone and receiver, the amplifier increases the power of the signal supplied by the microphone before transmitting it to the receiver, which sends it to your ears.
The receiver gathers electrical signal from the amplifier and converts them back into sound.
The battery supplies the necessary electrical energy for the microphone, receiver and amplifier.
Adjusting to new hearing aids is a journey for your brain just as much as it is for your ears. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned user, reactivating the sound-processing centers of your brain requires patience and practice.
Start in a controlled environment: For the first few days, wear your hearing aids only at home where it is quiet and predictable.
Keep it brief: Limit your wear-time to just a few hours a day during the first two weeks.
Listen to your body: It is completely normal to feel fatigued. Take
your hearing aids out and rest whenever you feel overwhelmed.
Read aloud: Spend 10 to 15 minutes a day reading out loud to yourself. Alternatively, have a loved one read to you while you follow along with the text.
Manage your expectations: Keep in mind that improving your hearing and cognitive processing won’t happen overnight. It takes time and consistent effort to reach your full hearing potential.
Stay on top of professional care: Attend all of your scheduled follow-up appointments and quarterly rehabilitation assessments to ensure your devices are tuned perfectly for you.
Unlike eyeglasses, which give you immediate, positive results, hearing aids are part of a wider treatment and rehabilitation plan. How they sound, how they feel, even getting in the routine of wearing them every day takes adaptation and training. With time and patience, you’ll come to understand all the benefits these powerful “mini computers” can have on your life. You’ll find useful tips and tools in this brochure to help you achieve better hearing.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He probably wasn’t talking about people with hearing aids — but it still holds true.
Effort and a positive attitude are critical to improved hearing. Much of your success with your hearing aids will depend on your desire to learn and a determination to increase your ability to hear. To achieve better hearing, you must work at it daily. The ability to hear again has to be relearned — not just purchased.
One discipline common to almost everyone who successfully made the transition to hearing aids is practice. Just as personal training for our bodies encompasses more than simple strength training, keeping our hearing fit involves more than just our ears.
By putting effort into personal hearing training, you can improve auditory memory, attention and recognition of speech in noise.
When sounds arrive at the ears all components are encoded in up to 36,000,000 electrical impulses per ear (ex., just like 360,000,000 pixels of an image).
The brain arranges these impulses into high resolution patterns instantaneously, automatically and effortlessly.
These impulses travel to different areas of the brain called the auditory cortices. The left auditory cortex processes mainly phonemes and sequential differences and the right side processes tonal differences and prosody.
Ultimately the brain matches these impulse patterns into patterns in our auditory memory with assigned meanings. Then, we comprehend.