Need Hearing Aids? You Likely Have These Questions

If you are in need of hearing aids due to poor hearing, you may think of them as being very similar to glasses, where you put them in and you can magically hear better. This is not always the case with hearing aids, which can lead to people having questions about how they work and perform.

How Do You Know When You Need Hearing Aids?

It's possible that you are not aware that you even need hearing aids, which is because certain sounds come through better than others. You may still hear the louder vowel sounds that people make more clearly and not realize you are missing the high-pitched consonant sounds. 

For example, if someone says the word "fan," you may easily hear the "an" part of the word and miss out on hearing the "f" part of it. You are still hearing part of the word clearly and may just assume the problem is with how the other person is speaking. This is where hearing aids can help people who are missing out on parts of words that the brain is filling in because of how gradual the hearing loss occurs. 

Are Hearing Aids Bulky?

Many people that have hearing aids use a type that involves putting a receiver into the ear canal, which is not bulky at all. It looks like a very tiny earbud that goes into the ear, with a tube coming out of it leading to a small device that rests behind the upper ear. It's quite small when compared to the ear molds that were used many years ago. The hearing aids used today make it easier to use cell phones that are held up to the ear since all that is sticking out of the ear is a thin tube. 

Are There Different Types Of Hearing Aids?

Everyone has different needs when it comes to hearing, so there should be no surprise that there are different types of hearing aids.  

If you are often in a louder environment, there are hearing aids that are more directional with where the sound is picked up from. This allows you to easily hear the sounds coming from directly in front of you, such as talking to a person in a one-on-one conversation. For people that have a quiet lifestyle and mainly watch TV, it's possible to use a hearing aid that connects directly to the device they are watching so that they don't need to adjust the volume for everyone else in the room as well.