Hearing aids are relatively simple to maintain.
Keep hearing aid free of too much wax. If your hearing aid goes silent, a common problem would be wax blockage. You can easily clear this by changing the wax guard, or using the brush that came with your aid.
Keep batteries fresh and change once a week. Use only hearing aid batteries that are free of zinc. I would recommend an American or German made batteries.
If your hearing aid has a slim tube, then you must occasionally blow out wax from the tube. Unscrew the tube from the aid, and used canned air to blow it out. Then carefully screw it back on to the aid.
For BTE's with an ear mold, be sure to have tubes changed when they start to get hard. Tubes should be pliable for best fit. This should be done at a hearing aid office.
I will post a new video on hearing aid maintenance soon on my youtube channel. You can easily access my youtube videos from my website
www.thehearingstation.com
Monday, September 24, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
What Hearing Aid is Right for Me?
Your hearing is a very personal thing, and it is difficult to say that one brand will be better for you than another... difficult but not impossible.
Hearing aids are typically priced on two criteria, channels-bands and software. Bands are how many times a frequency spectrum is split within a given range. For example, say a hearing aid's range in sound is 300hz to 8000hz, if that is split 12 times it is considered 12 bands. Channels are what you can do with the sound... compression, noise cancelling, etc... Software is the bulk of the price of any unit, the more aggressive the noise management software, the more the cost. Please keep in mind that this is a generality.
As far as hearing aids are concerned, there are certain types of losses that benefit from certain styles.
RIC [Receiver In the Canal] This style is best for sloping losses, such as high frequency losses. If your audiogram is nearly normal in the low frequencies, then the openness of the RIC style hearing aid is really best. The reason is because the bud on the receiver (the part that goes in the ear) doesn't typically fill the whole canal, allowing for low frequencies to leak out. You can have this type of aid if you have more severe losses, but it will most likely require an ear mold to control feedback [aka whistling]
ITE-HS-CIC All these aids are in the ear styles. These are great for flat losses. You can have this type of aid if you have sloping losses, but it will require several extra visits to the office to get the programming just right.
Invisible Aids These are for mild to moderate losses. They are typically very expensive, and very fragile. They sit on the bony portion of the ear canal, so they are not as comfortable as other aids. The nice thing is that they are completely invisible, so no one will ever know you are wearing it.
The bottom line is this... Any hearing aid you are willing to wear daily is your perfect aid!
Hearing aids are typically priced on two criteria, channels-bands and software. Bands are how many times a frequency spectrum is split within a given range. For example, say a hearing aid's range in sound is 300hz to 8000hz, if that is split 12 times it is considered 12 bands. Channels are what you can do with the sound... compression, noise cancelling, etc... Software is the bulk of the price of any unit, the more aggressive the noise management software, the more the cost. Please keep in mind that this is a generality.
As far as hearing aids are concerned, there are certain types of losses that benefit from certain styles.
RIC [Receiver In the Canal] This style is best for sloping losses, such as high frequency losses. If your audiogram is nearly normal in the low frequencies, then the openness of the RIC style hearing aid is really best. The reason is because the bud on the receiver (the part that goes in the ear) doesn't typically fill the whole canal, allowing for low frequencies to leak out. You can have this type of aid if you have more severe losses, but it will most likely require an ear mold to control feedback [aka whistling]
ITE-HS-CIC All these aids are in the ear styles. These are great for flat losses. You can have this type of aid if you have sloping losses, but it will require several extra visits to the office to get the programming just right.
Invisible Aids These are for mild to moderate losses. They are typically very expensive, and very fragile. They sit on the bony portion of the ear canal, so they are not as comfortable as other aids. The nice thing is that they are completely invisible, so no one will ever know you are wearing it.
The bottom line is this... Any hearing aid you are willing to wear daily is your perfect aid!
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