With my new hearing aids, I’m Hearing Everything!

 

Suzanne came in this morning and reported that she was hearing EVERYTHING. She had come in for her one week check up and she told me about her experience.

 

“I wore my hearing aids all week all day long. I really paid attention to new sounds just like you told me to. I can hear my shoes and all sorts of other things now. Some sounds were quite loud like the toilet flushing, road noise in the car and the music in church.”

 

How is conversation?” I asked.

 

“It’s so much better. I was even at a meeting with a lot of people and I heard everything. The T.V. is great! I turned the volume down two thirds of what it used to be before I got the hearing aids.”

 

I asked, “Are you pleased?”

 

“Oh yes! Very pleased. And no one can see them, which I really like.” she replied.

Hearing aids: What’s going on here. 

 

This illustrates the process that I always talk about which is the necessity for the brain to rewire itself. With hearing loss, the brain gets used to a softer more muted world. Hearing aids change that. Sounds are once again heard in their entirety and as a result, seem quite different.

 

Early treatment of hearing loss has dramatic impact on longterm success with hearing aids. The sooner someone begins treatment, the easier it is to transition back into hearing all of the environmental sounds accurately. The brain quickly adapts to the new sounds and stays “in shape.” The longer one waits, the harder it can be to get back up to speed.

 

Being aware of and hearing all the environmental noise is critical to the hearing/listening process. The background noise should be just that – in the background. With today’s hearing aids technology we can minimize the distraction and separate noise from speech. However, we need to hear it and get used to it so that we can tune it out just like we did when we were infants.

 

The ability to tune out environmental sounds while focusing on conversation is a critical listening skill. This skill usually gets rusty and out of shape as hearing loss progresses and is left untreated. When someone begins wearing hearing aids, they need to practice and sharpen their listening skills to hear better in noisier environments.

 

Chris Maher

M.Ed., BC-HIS

Topic: Hearing aids