Category: Hearing Aids

It is an unfortunate fact that people are happy to put their hearing on the back burner. While if your family member needed glasses, they would get them. Or they needed to have dental treatment; it would most likely be booked – hearing seems to fall by the wayside.

A study by the International Journal of Audiology found that there are up to 80% of 55-74-year-olds who would benefit from hearing aids. While many people know that their hearing is declining and choose to do nothing about it, others simply aren’t aware.

Here are some of the reason you might hear behind not wearing a hearing aid

• A hearing aid is too expensive
• I don’t like how hearing aids look
• My hearing isn’t that bad
• They are too hard to use
• Uncomfortable to wear every day

It is important that you support the person, and rather than tell them why they are wrong, look for solutions that answer each of their issues.

What You Can Do To Help

Time to talk

Find some time in your week to have a real discussion about it. It can feel like you are badgering them into wearing a hearing aid, and that can often end in disaster. Get to the bottom of why they don’t want to wear it. It can help to speak to an audiologist to get the facts about why they should be wearing a hearing aid.

Combat their anxiety with facts and benefits.

One of the key areas that you can impress upon them the seriousness of the issue is that cognitive decline is linked with hearing loss.

In it together

You are playing a supporting role, but it is important that the person knows that it doesn’t just impact them. When a person has hearing loss, they can often forget how it impacts other people. It means that people around them need to have their own TV and radio at a higher volume. They may often have to repeat themselves.

Everyone is adapting, which will make your family member less likely to realize there is a problem.

If everyone is making compromises, they may not truly realize the extent of their hearing loss or how it affects those around them.

Offer in-person support

It may be that your family member is confident about the language used when they are discussing their hearing. In this case, you can offer and insist that you arrange or attend their next appointment with them. You can write down any questions they may have in advance so that you can cover everything you need.

It is also a good idea for you to take notes so that you can go over what was said, what your next steps are, and how you can make the process easy.

Your audiologist will be able to let your family member try on different hearing aids, hear more about how to take care of them, and more.

Benefits

Of course, the biggest bonus is that they will have better hearing. However, that can happen in a lot of different ways. Hearing aids are now cooler and have more utility than ever. And while not everyone will want every piece of technology, but there are some great options:

• There are hearing aids with fall alerts; they can send out a notification if the wearer has an accident
• Bluetooth connections can connect your hearing aid to your phone or tablet so that you can listen in the highest quality available
• There are some hearing aids that can track your activity, including the number of steps

Types of hearing aid

Many people still consider the old-fashioned hearing aid styles. There are a number of styles that they can choose from. An audiologist will go through your options with you, but here are a few that you might be able to consider:

• In the ear (ITE): These are the in the ear type of hearing aid. These come in two styles, one that fills the outer ear and the other that only fills the lower part of the ear.
• In the canal (ITC): Is a custom hearing aid that fits totally inside the ear and can barely be seen.
• Completely in the canal (CIC): CIC hearing ais fits inside the ear and is the least visible option.
• Behind the ear (BTE): The BTE is the more traditional hearing aid style

There are other options; if you want to find out more about how you can help your family member, then contact Evolution HEARing today at Charlottesville, VA: (434) 216-3599.

Technology is forever changing across the board, and this most definitely includes the technology that you can now see starting to develop with hearing aids. If you’re someone who uses hearing aids, then you will most likely be intrigued to learn about some of the latest innovative technology that is being used to help improve hearing aids. The newest hearing aid features are likely to affect the future of hearing aids and the treatments that are recommended by audiologists for many years to come.

Let’s have a look at some of the technology that you can expect to see in the future of hearing aids:

Fuel cell technology

You can expect to see a change in the way that some hearing aids are powered, adapted from the technology that you see in the likes of sports and fitness products such as the smartwatch, the fuel cell for use with hearing aids has now become perfect. Although a challenging innovation to be released, there are now hearing aids that don’t require batteries. This means that in the near future, there will be no need to change batteries or recharge your hearing aids continuously. There is still a lot of questions surrounding this area, but it’s something you should keep your eye on.

Rechargeable in the ear hearing aids

There have been rumors for many years regarding rechargeable custom hearing aids. They are certainly something that is highly sought after by people who use them, merely due to the number of batteries they use. Many new and old hearing aid wearers are bound to like having the option of wearing this hearing aid. Not only is it useful to be able to recharge your hearing aids, but it’s also a great way to help the environment. Although through no fault of their own, hearing aid users tend to require a large number of batteries. Using a rechargeable device will eliminate the need for batteries and help hearing aid users minimize their carbon footprint.

Biometric sensors

The first hearing aid with a sensor has already been developed, and there are likely to be many more introduced shortly. The first Receiver in Canal with an embedded biometric sensor has come to the market, with this comes the power to monitor your health at the same time as wearing your hearing aids. It’s optimized for all sizes and will measure your heart rate, rest and recuperation intervals, energy expenditure and activity levels. This is bound to provide a platform for future innovations in other hearing devices. Having the sensor in the canal style of hearing aid allows complete access to monitor areas like this. Because it can be shared for people, who have hearing loss also to have other issues, it will enable their hearing aids also to monitor their fitness levels.

Upgrades to hearing aid functionality

Something that has been seen a lot recently is the update of the firmware that is included in hearing aids. With the inclusion of artificial intelligence, the systems will be able to easily add new upgrades to existing hearing aids without any problems. This enables a continuous flow of updates of the latest systems. In turn, this leads to the potential of the same hearing aids becoming better and more innovative tomorrow than today. If you wanted the newest technology for your hearing aids you had to buy a new model now you can upgrade your existing aids although it’s still possible to be drawn in by the more modern editions that get released.

Multifunctional communication devices

Recent technological innovation has advanced extremely quick. Leading to hearing aids now changing dramatically. Directly hearing aids are there to help you to hear better. However, they’re now approaching having multifunctional devices focused around communication in all its glory. Hearing aids are now becoming devices that you don’t wear because you have to but because you want to. They look as though they’re going to enrich your life in more ways than just hearing better.

There are forever new players becoming involved with the development of technology across the board and some are highly involved in the development of hearing aids in North Carolina and Virginia. This means that we can look forward too much more innovative features and technology. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities and already see some of them starting to become a reality.