If your hearing has worsened, which the audiologist can determine through a series of hearing tests, the hearing aids can be reprogrammed to adjust to your new degree of loss. If your hearing aids are older than five years old, you may need to buy a new pair that has more advanced technology. The most common reason why a hearing aid loses performance is obstruction of the sound output in the ear due to wax or debris. Weekly cleaning can help tremendously with this.
So the longer you wait to put on or wear hearing aids, the less they stimulate the brain and auditory nerves and worsen speech recognition. Once the nerve is affected, you can't reverse the damage. There are also other side effects from not using aids. These include an increased risk of cognitive impairment, slips and falls, memory problems, depression, decreased income, lower productivity and job opportunities, and the list goes on.
This is probably the most common reason why hearing aids don't work. According to research, the average patient takes 6 months to fully acclimate to amplification. So, if a hearing aid wearer only wears their hearing aids to go to church, or for a few hours each day, they will never get the full benefits of them. Constant use of hearing aids, for at least 8 hours a day, is key to enjoying the restored sounds and speech that has been lost.
Hearing aid users wait, on average, 10 years before receiving help for hearing loss. But during that time, communication with loved ones becomes more difficult, and isolation and health risks increase. However, when used improperly, hearing aids can further damage the hearing. If your hearing aid is programmed so that the noise is well above what you need, this can lead to a deterioration in the hearing condition, says Thatcher.
It is important to consult a qualified and licensed audiologist or hearing aid dispenser so that the hearing aids are properly adjusted and programmed. I hear everything and I don't have to be ashamed of people repeating what they say to me over and over again. The problem with the omission of certain sounds is that the auditory nerve in the brain does not receive enough stimulation. Remember that hearing aids are sensitive electronic devices that spend most of their time in a warm, waxy and sweaty environment.
Some conditions, such as middle ear problems or Ménière's disease, can cause hearing to fluctuate from time to time. Two people may have exactly the same hearing loss (unlikely, but you know one example well), but they have two completely different speech discrimination scores. Just like you need to exercise to keep your body healthy, your ears need to hear the sounds and recognize them to function at their best. In fact, hearing aids are simply a step towards achieving a result and, of course, not the beginning and the end for everyone.
To acclimatize during the adaptation period, hearing professionals usually recommend that a person wear their hearing aids a few hours each day, until they are worn throughout the day. I avoided the phone, but my hearing loss progressed to the point where I lost the keywords of a phrase. In addition to wearing headphones to keep your conversational skills sharp, there are other ways to compensate for this loneliness. If feedback is a new problem that you haven't experienced in the past, it's probably not a problem with how your hearing aids work.
I confess that once I started working at home years ago, I have rarely put on my aids from the moment I got out of bed to the moment I fell asleep. The most common cause of hearing aids not producing any sound is a plugged wax protector or a sound opening. Everything from Genes and Noise Exposure to Medications, Head Injuries and Infections Can Influence Hearing Loss. .