Nowadays, there is lot of advertisements and offers on hearing aids, that we as a consumer are often confused where to go?, which brand suits me? and what should I expect from hearing aids? Hence, we here are giving you a few tips to find the best hearing aid for yourself.
1. Where to go?
Unfortunately, In India not all hearing aids dealers are qualified or certified to fit hearing aids. The professionals who are qualified to fit hearing aids are known as Audiologist. Audiologists are graduate or post graduate or doctorate in Audiology. In addition, all audiologist should have RCI certification to work in India.
2. What tests have to be done?
Most clinics only perform Pure Tone Audiometry (PTA) test, but this test does not solve all the purpose. Speech Audiometry should also be done to check the patients responses for speech sounds. It will help the clinician to decide about the hearing aids in a better way. Sometimes we have to perform some special tests like Speech in Noise (SPIN)
3. Life-Style Assessment
To chose the best hearing device for you, your audiologist should about your listening requirements, noise levels in your surroundings and your comfort.
This Questionnaire can help you understand about your lifestyle in a better way.
1. Do you occasionally have large family gatherings (more than 8 people)? YES NO
2. Do you attend religious services? YES NO
3. Do you attend concerts, musical performances, plays, or movies? YES NO
4. Do you attend sporting events (professional, college, high school, little league, etc.)? YES NO
5. Do you drive an automobile? YES NO
6. Do you sometimes go to large, busy restaurants? YES NO
7. Do you attend group meetings such as civic organizations, local government meetings,
school boards, etc? YES NO
8. Are you employed in a job that involves meetings or group discussions? YES NO
9. Do you watch television? YES NO
10. Do you occasionally shop in large, busy stores? YES NO
If you answered YES to 5 or more of these questions, you probably have an “Active” lifestyle.
If you answered YES to 3 or 4 of these questions, you probably have a “Casual” lifestyle.
If you answered YES to 1 or 2 of these questions, you probably have a “Quiet” lifestyle
If you answered NO to all of these questions, you probably have a “Very Quiet” lifestyle.
4. Which Hearing Aid To chose?
After having your lifestyle assessed, now you are in a better position to select the hearing aids of your choice. But there are few things that you should get confused with:
i. No. Of Channels: It has been observed that the channels does not play a much bigger role in speech clarity and discrimination abilities through hearing aids. After certain limit, channels cease to its role. So do not get confused with the high number of channels with high quality of hearing aids.
ii. Feedback Cancellation: Nowadays, all hearing aid have feedback cancellation system and all are equally effective. It is upon the skills of your audiologist to provide the comfort with feedback, while choosing the best fit for your ear.
Apart from this, the features that you should really look are:
1. Noise Cancellation: You should ask your audiologist that how well the hearing aid can control the noise in your surroundings.
2. Automatic Functions: The other thing that one should ask that how automatically the provided hearing aids can automatically adjust to your environment and how easily it can change its setting according to the requirement of the wearer.
3. Compatibility with other devices: Nowadays, hearing aids are wireless and can be connected to any audio device to give the richer and fuller experience of sound.
Hearing aids are very sophisticated electronic devices, they require lot of care and maintenance to work properly. Your audiologist is the best person to help you with all the required services and maintenance of hearing aids.
Best of Luck....