How to choose the right instrument

How to choose a hearing aid

 

This is a question we get asked quite often. The choosing of a hearing aid is not about your hearing loss alone, it involves other very important issues that you must think about. It is to the advantage of the user to have a hearing aid that matches as many items to their needs as possible. The answer to these issues will help greatly in finding the right hearing aid to fit your whole hearing need:

 

Lifestyle- One very important issue is lifestyle. Do you have an active lifestyle or a quite one. Do you work and if so, does it involve complicated situations such as meetings or business lunches. Do you go to church and if so, is it a lively one with a lot of music. Do you play sports such as bowling, golf or any other outdoor or indoor sports? Do you enjoy going out dancing or to restaurants.

 

Technical Skill- This can be subcategorized in two groups. The are people such as me that like to mess with buttons, remotes and everything else they can touch and play with when it comes to technology. We are the ones that enjoy learning everything about the technology we use in order to be in full control of all aspects of that technology. I’ll call this group the “Tech Nerds”. The other group doesn’t have the need to know everything about the technology they use as long as it works well and is as easy as possible to handle. I’ll call this group the “Tech Masters”. The first group might enjoy a hearing aid with remote controlled capabilities or manual multi-programs and volume controls. They enjoy the ability to choose how the hearing aid will be behaving, fully automatic or manual or anything in between. The second group might want a fully automatic hearing aid with artificial intelligence. This type of aid is smart enough to make decisions into what are the best settings to best perform in all kinds of situations. In conclusion, we have to match a hearing aid with the individual patient’s technical needs.

 

Physical Considerations- Most of the hearing aid wearers are older patients. Dexterity, vision and other factors must be taken in consideration. A patient might want the smallest aid available but how will are they deal with putting that small aid in the ear, or change very small batteries. Manual volume controls or manual memory buttons can be very small and hard to work if there are physical limitations.