Importance of Adjustments
The secret to successful hearing aid use is to wear them regularly and not in the drawer.
To wear hearing aids regularly the aid and sounds must be comfortable and pleasant.
It generally takes 7 to 10 years before a person with a hearing problem presents for assistance with the hearing. By this time, the brain has not been receiving clear hearing information and this has adversely affected the way the auditory nerves respond to auditory signals when heard.
If a hearing aid is fitted and presented at levels to compensate for the degree of hearing loss in one visit, this overwhelms most listeners as it is too much sound, too quickly. This is the most common reason why hearing aids are worn in the drawer.
The auditory nerves need to be retrained to hear sounds. The hearing aid is the tool by which sound can be gradually introduced back in a way the the listener finds comfortable and pleasant.
Jim was a new client to the Tasmanian Centre for Hearing. He had unsuccessfully tried to wear hearing aids on three separate occasions in the past. He was desperate to improve his hearing. However, each time Jim had tried in the past, he had found the sound overwhelming and unpleasantly loud. It was not lack of motivation on his part. When he finally got to experience a neuro-adaptive approach to the fitting of hearing aids he discovered that it was not the fault of his hearing aids in the past, but the way they were fitted.
Jim was so excited that he was able to wear his hearing aids comfortably, all day – every day. Each adjustment made to his hearing aids over the coming months, slowly made his hearing ability clearer and clearer. Jim made the comment recently at one of his visits, where he said:
“This approach makes sense. I lost my hearing slowly over a number of years. It makes sense that for a successful outcome I have to slowly restore my hearing over a period of time so I can adjust to the changes.”
If you have unsuccessfully tried to wear hearing aids in the past, CALL NOW at (03) 6223 5444 for an appointment.