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Selecting a digital hearing aid There are several factors to think about when selecting a digital hearing aid. Understanding your choices will help you make a better decision when presented with your options by a hearing health care professional. HearingAidHelp.com has identified 4 factors to consider when selecting a digital hearing aid.
Factor 1: Number of channels and bands To understand the function of separating a hearing aid's response into channels and bands according to frequency, let me first explain the speech spectrum. Speech covers a variety
of frequencies (pitches) with the low-pitched vowels (A, E, I, O, and
U) carrying loudness and high-pitched consonants (S, T, P, F, D, M,
N etc) carrying understanding. Hearing loss is usually not consistent
across all frequencies (pitches). If your hearing loss changes across the frequency spectrum, then you may need more channels/bands. If your hearing loss is relatively flat across the frequency spectrum, then you may only need 2 channels. More channels are not always better. The number of channels you need may depend upon your hearing loss.
Factor 2: Professionals' expertise This concept cannot be understated because the ability of your hearing health care professional to properly fit and program a digital hearing aid is critical to the success of the hearing aid fitting. Digital hearing aids are truly remarkable; however, programming by an experienced professional is a required component for your satisfaction. This is why it is important to ask your hearing healthcare professional WHICH brand of digital hearing aids they have the most experience fitting and not just what they would recommend.
Factor 3: Directional microphone This term means that the hearing aid will have two microphones or two microphone ports to allow a decrease in the volume of the sounds coming in the back microphone. When activated, this technique boosts the sounds in front of you by decreasing those behind you. Directional microphones are useful in crowd situations where you need to hear the person in front of you and not the surrounding noise. It is usually recommended for active people who find themselves in restaurants, crowds, meetings, and parties. This technology does require you to position yourself with your back to the majority of the noise and your face to the speaker. At this time, directional microphones are only available on full shell-in-the-ear, half shell in-the-ear, and behind-the-ear hearing instrument sizes. The hearing aids should have a switch to allow you to change from picking up all sounds around you equally to directionality. Keep in mind that in some quiet situations you will want to hear from all directions equally (example: at home when your spouse is not directly in front of you or at you side).
This term means that the hearing aid will have a push-button or switch, which allows you to change your listening program (or what is programmed into your hearing aid for you to hear). If you think about your regular day, you change environments from quiet to loud. If you change listening environments frequently you may consider a hearing aid with multiple memories. By the push of a button, or flick of a switch, you can change between pre-set listening programs (programmed by you audiologist or hearing instrument specialist) for noisy situations, quiet situations, music situations, and even work environment situations.
Other hearing aid articles A
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For
example, many people have a high-frequency hearing loss where it is
difficult to hear high-pitched sounds (examples: female voices, consonant
sounds, birds). This presents a problem to the person because they hear
some loudness from the low pitches but do not have clarity from the
missing high pitches. When fitting this hearing loss with a hearing
aid, the professional wants to match the exact amount of amplification
for that exact hearing loss at that precise frequency. Digital hearing
aids divide the frequency/pitch range into channels and bands. This
division allows frequency-specific adjustments to be made independently
in that area. Some hearing aids have more channels/bands than others.
