When To Think About Hearing Aids
Some people with mild high frequency hearing loss feel they are having trouble hearing. They may work in a complex listening environment such as a school, medical facility or restaurant. They may have slower processing speed that makes it hard to fill in the blanks when they miss part of a word or phrase. Other people feel they are struggling to hear because they have very social lives and they don’t want to miss out on anything!
If someone is noticing that they are having trouble hearing, or the family sees that they are struggling, it is a good indicator that it is time to look into hearing aids. The good news is that hearing aids can improve a person’s quality of life, whether they have mild hearing loss or severe to profound loss.
See what a hearing test is like. Watch one in progress with Advanced Specialty Care’s audiologist Jocelyn Dore.
Hearing Aid Evolution
Fifteen years ago, a person had to have fairly poor hearing to really benefit from hearing aids. Back then, because of limitations of hearing aid amplification bandwidth, a person was considered a hearing aid candidate only when their hearing had decreased to a moderate degree for most of the frequency range.
Today, hearing aids are highly frequency specific. This means that you can benefit from hearing aids even if your hearing loss is in the very high frequencies, but normal at other pitches. Hearing aids are able to amplify a narrow range of frequencies to allow detection and discrimination of consonant sounds.
If you or a loved one are having signs of a hearing problem, an audiologist can test your hearing and recommend hearing aid choices that suit your particular loss and listening needs. At Advanced Audiology and Hearing Aid Services, we diagnose and treat people of all ages. Our audiologists are conveniently located with offices in Danbury, New Milford, Norwalk and Ridgefield in Fairfield County, CT.