There are many different reasons why people have hearing aid devices. Some people have hearing that is only a little off, while others need intensive hearing support in order to hear everything perfectly. That is why an audiologist is the most logical choice for helping to support an individual’s hearing. They can program a device to meet the specific needs of the user, through a technology-rich process that allows them to map the hearing of their patients. We will examine the ways that hearing aids are programmed and how this can help the hearing patient.
What Factors Can Be Adjusted?
For every person that suffers from hearing loss, there are different things that they needs from the device as well as some preferences that they would like to exercise in their hearing. Among the top factors that are adjusted most frequently on the hearing devices are volume, frequency, microphone abilities, compression ratios, and intensity on various aspects. Of course, another one of the best adjustments to make is for background noise. All of these variables depend on the hearing aid device and the capabilities that it has.
Processing Time
Many of the manufactured hearing aids that are on the market today come with settings that needs to be customized in order to work to their fullest potential. Back in the early days of hearing aid technology, there were few adjustments that could be made to the devices unless you knew how to work on them yourself. Now, there is an entire evaluation process that needs to take place before your hearing is going to be optimal. While it is a trouble-shooting process that may seem arduous to some, audiologists use several tests in order to help come up with a hearing aid solution that will optimize all hearing outcomes for the patient. It is important to note that these tests are not always final as the brain can adjust to the new sounds and reveal other faults in hearing that need to be adjusted. After the device is fine-tuned, the patient’s hearing will be much better off than a factory-set hearing aid.
Programming Hearing Aids
Using many different systems, hearing specialists are able to determine the best ways to program your hearing aids. By looking at Visual speech mapping technology, the individual in charge of your hearing health will be able to look at the different ways that sounds are hitting your eardrum and are being interpreted by your brain. The end result of this is that they can see the best way to introduce new options into your hearing aid such as noise reduction and filtering. These can block out sounds that are overwhelming important areas of sound input such as speech to give you a better hearing outcome. They can also run tests in the office that simulate the outside world environment so that they can discover how the device will behave away from the cloistered environment that they have created. There is one part of hearing health that people need to be wary of- programming the device on their own. Even if you manage to buy the components to update your hearing aid, it is best to have a specialist perform the update because they have the critical knowledge that is needed to get the absolute best outcomes from the hearing aid device.