Are You a Hearing Aid Candidate?

Wondering if you are a hearing aid candidate? Have you noticed a decrease in your hearing? Seems like you just cannot understand as well as you used to? Do you have to frequently ask for repetition or fake understanding? You may be a candidate for digital hearing instruments! To find out whether you are a candidate, you must first make an appointment for a thorough auditory evaluation. Evaluations can last from 30-90 minutes, and will typically involve a minor amount of paperwork, discussion of your medical and hearing healthcare history, some objective evaluations of your ear and hearing, and behavioral assessments of hearing. Results of your hearing assessment will be fully explained to you, and your options will be discussed. Behavioral hearing test results will be graphed to indicate the level of your hearing sensitivity. This graph of results of pure tone audiometry will be clearly marked to show results from the right and left ears. Right ear results are typically written in red, while left ear results are typically written in blue. The y-axis of the graph indicates the level/volume of the sound in decibels (dB) from soft (-10) to loud (110) from top to bottom. The x-axis of the graph indicates the pitch/frequency of the sound in Hertz (Hz) from low (125) to high (8000) from left to right. The

The Hearing Center

Cheyenne, WY 82001 (307) 222-0244 Loveland, CO 80538 (970) 785-8337 Greeley, CO 80634 (970) 373-5118 Brush, CO 80723 (970)840-7067 Fort Collins, CO 80525 (970) 373-3958

threshold in dB is marked for each tested frequency to determine the sensitivity to each pitch. Each frequency may exhibit a different severity of loss. You may have normal hearing in one pitch range, but severe hearing impairment in another. Below is a chart of the degree of hearing loss. Hearing Level (dB) Classification -10 to 15 Normal Hearing 16 to 25 NH (adults) Slight HL (children) 26 to 40 Mild HL 41 to 55 Moderate HL 56 to 70 Moderately severe HL 71 to 90 Severe HL >90 Profound HL Katz, J. (ed). (1994). Handbook of Clinical Audiology. (5th ed.). Baltimore: William & Wilkins. Various factors will go into your candidacy for hearing amplification. However, even a person exhibiting only a mild hearing loss may be fit with a hearing instrument if the loss is bothersome enough to their daily communication and no other confounding factors are present to prevent the fitting. Other patients exhibiting greater amounts of loss may not feel that their ability to communicate is hindered, and may, therefore,

The Hearing Center

Cheyenne, WY 82001 (307) 222-0244 Loveland, CO 80538 (970) 785-8337 Greeley, CO 80634 (970) 373-5118 Brush, CO 80723 (970)840-7067 Fort Collins, CO 80525 (970) 373-3958

wait to purchase amplification. Your provider should be able to thoroughly explain the pros and cons of purchasing and waiting. In most cases, side on the earlier the better. Over time without amplification, you can suffer from auditory deprivation. Auditory deprivation means that the brain, over time, forgets how to listen to the sounds it has been missing. If auditory deprivation has occurred for a long period of time, those pitches and volumes may never be clear again due to the poor processing of the sound at the level of the brain.

The Hearing Center

Cheyenne, WY 82001 (307) 222-0244 Loveland, CO 80538 (970) 785-8337 Greeley, CO 80634 (970) 373-5118 Brush, CO 80723 (970)840-7067 Fort Collins, CO 80525 (970) 373-3958