If you are struggling with hearing loss, it does not have to mean becoming cut off from the world. You can get the best hearing aid to help boost your confidence and offer you high quality of life.
The benefits of wearing hearing aids are many, including greater access to information and resources that would be inaccessible otherwise, a reduced burden on family members who must aid in understanding, and increased independence as well as safety while alone or out and about in a loud environment. If your hearing problem is critical, your physician will advise you on which hearing aid is best for severe loss.
If you are wondering how to get your hearing better, you can consider hearing aids. For many, hearing aids can even make it possible for them to return to formal education or professional careers.
Hearing aids come in various styles and price ranges and have been designed for people at varying stages of hearing loss, from mild to severe. Some types are simple and inexpensive, while others are more complicated and expensive, such as unseen hearing aids. All have the same goal: to restore an average hearing experience by sending an appropriate amount of sound to the user’s inner ear while filling in missing sounds with the help of a hearing aid receiver.
Although hearing aids have been found helpful in many situations, they do not work well in noisy environments. Noisy environments can affect the hearing aid power and make it difficult for individuals with significant hearing loss to understand speech.
Hearing loss can strike at any age, from birth to old age. Certain work and leisure activities expose people to loud noises which can reduce hearing. For many types of hearing loss, hearing aid care and assisted hearing devices can help improve the quality of life for those suffering from hearing loss, their families and caregivers. Virginia hearing consultants offer hearing aid tests, fittings, and repair, assistive listening devices, custom hearing protection, and musician monitors to make it easier to compensate for and live with hearing loss.
Hearing loss can occur at any age
An estimated 3 babies in every 1,000 are born with serious to profound hearing loss. Hearing loss is not inherited, and more than 90% of the children born deaf have parents with full hearing. Childhood diseases and infections can affect hearing adversely. As many as five out of six children will experience an ear infection, also known as otitis media, by the age of 3 years. It is estimated that around 1.4 million children below the age of 18 have hearing problems.
Among adults over the age of 18, around 37.5 million or around 15% of all American adults, suffer from some degree of hearing loss. Hearing loss also occurs naturally as part of the aging process, and 30% of people over the age of 60 years have some degree of hearing loss.
Hearing loss can also be caused by exposure to loud noises during work or leisure activities and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) reports that around 15% of Americans, or 26 million people, between the ages of 20 and 69 years have suffered high frequency hearing loss due to such exposure.
Negative consequences of hearing loss
The negative consequences of hearing loss vary according to age but all result in a lower quality of life. Children with hearing loss may withdraw into themselves and underperform in school. They may have difficult making friends and participating in games. Even limited hearing loss can cause them to miss up to 50% of classroom discussions and instruction.
For adults, hearing loss closes off a world of communications, making it difficult to use the telephone, tv and even music systems. It can be difficult to hear alarms and sirens, making it dangerous for the individual to live or move around alone. This problem is compounded by the fact that many people who need hearing aid care don’t even seek help, and many who do have hearing aids tend not to use them.
Hearing aid care and assistive listening devices
Sometimes people have good reasons for not using their hearing aids. The older generation of hearing aids were cumbersome, embarrassing to wear and not very effective. Often they produced an uncomfortable amount of static. Fortunately, hearing aid care can fine tune and adjust hearing aids so that they functions correctly.
Hearing aid care and assistive hearing devices for TVs, telephones and alarms and alerts can restore communications and a better quality of life for those suffering from hearing loss.
- TV assistive listening devices
These are connected easily to your television and sound is transmitted to headphones or earbuds. Sound levels can be adjusted for individual preferences. There are even hearing aids that can connect wirelessly to your television or home theater system. - Amplified Telephones
With both cordless and traditional models available, amplified telephones have adjustable, amplified sound level so you can hear more clearly. - Alarm and Alert Devices
Alarms and alert devices include amplified alarm clocks with flashing lights. Some alarms can also alert you to telephone calls.
Medical insurance may be used to pay for many kinds of hearing aid care. For individuals and families seeking solutions to hearing loss and wary of cumbersome traditional hearing aids, a meeting with Virginia hearing consultants may put you on the road to an improved quality of life.
