Troubleshooting Hearing Aids
One thing
that can be stated with some assurance is that properly selected and programmed digital hearing instruments can provide
hearing correction previously unobtainable 5 years ago.
So why do
some hearing aids end up in the drawer and their owners left discouraged? In fact, some people can honestly say they
hear better without their hearing aids than with them. Obviously something’s not right.
To help shed
some light on this question we present two examples of how this might happen.
What's
that you're hearing?
A retired
67 year old male with a high frequency hearing loss complains that his hearing aids are loud but that he can’t
understand speech well. In fact, everything just sounds noisy. Riding in the car or being in a noisy room drives him crazy.
His 5 year
old in-the-ear aids are tested for their frequency response which is represented on the graph below by the blue line labeled
number 1. The frequency response curve shows the aid providing its greatest amount of amplification at 600hz and its lowest
amount of amplification at 1500hz.
The patient’s description of his hearing instruments is correct. The aids are amplifying low frequency sound like fans and road noise considerably
more than the high frequency speech sounds he needs to hear. After counseling, the patient chose to be fit with simple 6 channel
high power aids represented by the green line labeled number 2.
Post fit
follow-up results were positive. The patient is surprised he can understand family members as well as he can. Travel in the
car and dining at restaurants is comfortable. He promises the aids won’t end up in his drawer.
