The numbers don’t lie: you may need hearing aids someday. A report from NIDCD estimates that around a quarter of all people from 60 to 75 have some form of loss of hearing, and that figure jumps up to 50% for people 75 and older. But how can you be certain which model is correct for you when you recognize it’s your best opportunity to combat hearing loss? Hearing aids used to have problems such as vulnerability to water damage and unwanted background noise but cutting-edge hearing aids have resolved these kinds of problems. But there’s still a great deal you need to know when selecting a hearing aid to make sure it fits your lifestyle.
Directionality is a Crucial Feature
Directionality is one crucial function you should look for, which has the ability to keep background noise to a minimum while focusing in on sound you want to hear including conversations. One, if not both, of two types of directionality systems are operating inside most hearing aids, they either focus on sound directly in front of you, or they focus on sound coming from different speakers and sometimes do both.
Will Your Hearing Aid Interact With Your Phone?
It’s become very clear, we’re addicted to our phone as a nation. Even if you don’t have a smartphone, it’s likely you have an old-style cell phone. And for those few who don’t actually own a cell phone, you probably still have a land-line. So, how well hearing aid works with your phone is an important consideration when you’re looking at hearing aids. How does it sound? Are you able to discern voices precisely? Does it feel comfortable? Are there any Bluetooth connection features available? When looking at new hearing aids, you need to consider all of these.
Are You Inclined to Use it?
In the past few years, as noted above, the development of hearing aids has vastly improved. One of those advances has been the size and shape of hearing aids, which are much smaller nowadays. But there are undoubtedly pros and cons. It is dependant on what your specific needs are. A smaller hearing aid isn’t as obvious and may fit better but a larger one may be more powerful. You can get a hearing aid that fits directly in your ear canal and is all but invisible, but it won’t have many of the features available in larger hearing aids and will be prone to earwax clogs. On the other end of the spectrum, a behind the ear hearing aid is larger and might be more obvious, but often come with more directionality functions and have more options for sound amplification.
Exposure to Specific Background Sounds
Wind noise has been an extreme problem for hearing aid users ever since they were invented. It could have driven anybody nuts to go out on a breezy day and hear nothing but the wind. If you’re an outdoors person or you live in a windy place, you’ll want to find a hearing aid that suppresses wind noise so you can have conversations at an average volume and avoid the headaches that are linked to hearing aid wind noises. Looking for more information about how to select the correct hearing aid? Give us a call.