Losing your hearing can be a devastating and alienating experience. Suddenly, the joys of family dinners, listening to your favourite music, or chatting with a friend at a bar can feel overwhelming. As you struggle to hear the notes or understand the conversation, you may start to realise that your ears are no longer what they once were.
Don’t despair though, while your hearing may be fading, modern hearing aids are nothing like what they used to be. In fact, they’re vastly better. Comfortable hearing aids that are super powerful, sleeker, and more functional are commonplace now. Yep, it’s good to talk, so here are some ways that hearing aids are transforming lives.
HOW DOES YOUR HEARING ACTUALLY FUNCTION?
The human ear is fully developed when we’re born and babies can respond to both loud and faint noises. It is an incredibly complex structure, but here is a simplified explanation.
The ear is divided into three parts: the outer, middle, and inner ear. Sound travels through the outer ear, down the ear canal and hits the eardrum, causing it to vibrate. From there, the small bones called ossicles in the middle ear register the vibrations in the eardrum, which creates movement in the fluid of the inner ear. The fluid, or cochlea, causes shifting in the tiny hair cells, which send electrical signals up the inner ear to the auditory nerve. The brain then interprets these signals as sound.
Unlike clunky, unattractive, and uncomfortable hearing aids of the past, modern hearing aids have a variety of improvements.
THE ADDITION OF DIRECTIONAL MICROPHONES
One of the most common complaints with older hearing aids is that they simply increase the noise of everything without helping the sufferer focus on nearby speech, like your dinner guest. Directional microphones allow hearing aids to enhance speech in a noisy environment.
The real-life benefits of combining directional microphones and non-directional microphones are dramatic. They allow users to better simulate true hearing and improve the signal-to-noise ratio of sounds coming from the front.
USING SMART TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE
Many new hearing aids use smart technology, which allows them to wirelessly connect to smartphones, laptops, and tablets. This improvement allows the user to avoid wearing headphones when they want to talk on the phone or listening to music since the hearing aid is serving the same purpose.
Before this, talking on the phone was especially difficult for people with hearing aids since the older style microphones were not as adept at picking up voices on telephone calls. This can be a particular problem for the elderly who are more familiar with using antiquated hearing aids and resistant to updating.
AESTHETIC IMPROVEMENTS
New hearing aids are now smaller and customized to fit the wearer’s ear canal. This makes them more comfortable and less noticeable. They can also be dyed to match the person’s skin tone to make them even more subtle.
Much of these positive developments can be attributed to 3D printing. Audiologists can now scan the entire ear and create a model that fits perfectly within your ear. This has made creating custom hearing aids easier, faster, and more affordable than they ever were in the past.
