Do I Need Hearing Aids?
Do you need Hearing Aids?
I hope this short article will help you decide or at least convince you to have your hearing checked. A common type of hearing loss is one in which you have normal or nearly normal hearing in the low- and mid-pitched sounds, but have hearing loss in the high-pitched sounds. Some examples of low-pitched sounds in speech are vowel sounds like "o, ooh, ah, a, e," etc.
What Are Some Of The Signs You Might Need Hearing Aids?
If you frequently complain that people are whispering or mumbling or if you’re always asking people to repeat what they have said. Do you have increased difficulty understanding others with background noise such as noisy rooms, social occasions, or family gatherings? Do you prefer the television or radio louder than everyone else. If you have difficulty understanding people when you cannot see their faces. Do you have trouble hearing at the movies or theater, church or public gatherings? Maybe you are Becoming more impatient, irritable, frustrated, or withdrawn.
Some examples of high-pitched sounds in speech are "f, s, th, etc. These high-pitched consonant sounds carry the meaning of words so they help us understand speech, but tend to be very soft in volume. The low-pitched vowel sounds carry the volume of speech, but do not have much meaning. Therefore, vowel sounds help us hear speech, but do not help us understand what is said. In normal conversation, speech might sound loud enough but not quite clear enough if a hearing loss is present. This problem is worsened in background noise, since background noise will interfere with and cover up the speech you are trying to listen to. This problem is often associated with sensorineural hearing loss, which results from damage in the inner ear and/or in the auditory nerve endings.
How Hearing Aids Can Help You:
- Digital Hearing Aids especially can improve your ability to understand speech (such as conversations) by amplifying the sounds (such as high-pitched consonants) not audible to the individual. The extent a hearing aid can improve speech understanding will depend on the degree of the person's hearing loss and how much noise is present in the listening situations.
- Hearing aids make sounds louder (amplify sounds) so that you can hear them. The goal is to make soft sounds audible, the sound of normal conversation comfortable, and loud sounds loud, but not too loud.
- Some hearing aids can amplify high-pitched consonant sounds more than low-pitched vowel sounds to help you hear better in noisy situations. There are no hearing aids, however, that can completely eliminate troublesome background noise.
Hearing Facts:
- A large number of surveys shows that the use of hearing aids causes significant improvement in the quality of life of hearing impaired people.
- Did you know that About 3-4 in every 1,000 newborns have significant hearing loss. It can be inherited or caused by illness or injury.
- Hearing aids improve life for hearing impaired elderly as well as for the relatives with whom they interact.
I have completed a lot of research while studying my own hearing aid dilemma. Before I could make a decision I needed to know a lot more about hearing aids which are the best and cheapest for my money and particular hearing problem. Would cheap hearing aids work for me or would I need to spend thoousand of dollars, One audiologist thought that the Seimens Artis would be good. But for me they were a little pricey although I found several good deal on them. In the end I chose digital mail order bte hearing aids from eBay.
Have Your Hearing Checked Today To See If Hearing Aids Can Help You
A hearing test usually comprises a number of different examinations, e.g. pure tone test, middle ear test. When taken together, they can determine whether or not a person is suffering from hearing loss, and to what extent. nidcd
Hearing Aids Information:
Ear and Hearing - Current Table Of Contents
Ear and Hearing - February 2009, Volume 30, Issue 1
Prevalence of GJB2 (Connexin-26) and GJB6 (Connexin-30) Mutations in a Cohort...
Mutations or deletions in the GJB2 and GJB6 genes are reported to account for 50% of recessive deafness. Aiming at establishing the frequencies of GJB2 mutations and GJB6 deletions in the Brazilian population, we screened 300 individuals with hearing impairment. The c.35delG and del(GJB6-D13S1830) were most frequent mutations. Nineteen different sequence variations were found in the GJB2 gene (two of them were novel substitutions, p.Leu81Val and p.Met195Val). The present study demonstrated that mutations in the GJB2 gene and del(GJB6-D13S1830) are important causes of hearing impairment in Brazil. The diversity of variants in our sample reflects the ethnic heterogeneity of the Brazilian population.Page: 1DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e31819144adAuthors: Batissoco, Ana Carla 1; Abreu-Silva, Ronaldo Serafim 1; Braga, Maria Cristina Celia 1; Lezirovitz, Karina 1; Della-Rosa, Valter 2; Alfredo, Tabith Jr 3; Otto, Paulo Alberto 1; Mingroni-Netto, Regina Celia 1Audiological Findings Among Workers from Brazilian Small-Scale Fisheries.
Previous reports have shown that hearing loss is one of the chronic health effects related to the fishing activity. This study examined the noise exposure and hearing of fishermen from small-scale fisheries in Brazil. Participants included 141 male fishermen, and 136 controls matched by socioeconomic group, age, and gender. Fishermen with current or a history of occupational noise exposure had significantly poorer thresholds and more prevalent abnormal otoacoustic emissions than controls or unexposed participants. The results suggest a need for noise control, audiological care and hearing loss prevention services to be made available to workers from small-scale fisheries.Page: 8DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e31818fba17Authors: Paini, Michele C. 1; Morata, Thais C. 1,2; Corteletti, Lilian Jacob 1; Albizu, Evelyn 3; Marques, Jair M. 1; Santos, Lorayne 1The Influence of Temporal Stimulus Changes on Speech-Evoked Potentials Reveal...
The aim was to investigate whether cortical auditory-evoked potentials in response to monosyllabic words can be approximated by a composition of single, subsequent N1/P2 complexes considering the voice-onset time. The N1/P2 complexes used for the approximation were derived from the cortical responses to tone bursts. The approximations were fitted toward the measured speech-evoked potentials by means of an optimization procedure. Close matches could be gained. Hence, an acoustic change complex could be shown even in the case of strong temporal overlap of the constituting N1 and P2 components.Page: 16DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e31818fbb9dAuthors: Burger, Martin 1; Hoppe, Ulrich 2; Lohscheller, Jorg 1; Eysholdt, Ulrich 1; Dollinger, Michael 1Bone Conduction Auditory Steady State Response: Investigations into Reducing ...
Auditory steady state responses (ASSRs) can be recorded in sleeping neonates and can be used to estimate hearing thresholds. However, artifactual responses can contaminate recordings, particularly when recording bone conduction ASSRs. Using a simulation of a patient and the research MASTER system, this investigation studied the presence of artifact in bone conduction ASSRs and methods of eliminating it. It was determined that in situations where the sampling rate cannot be altered to prevent aliasing of the artifact to the modulation rates, screening and grounding the B-71 transducer and cable can significantly reduce artifact amplitude to levels not significantly above background noise.Page: 23DOI: 10.1097/AUD.0b013e31819144bdAuthors: Brooke, Ruth Elizabeth 1; Brennan, Siobhan Katharine 2; Stevens, John Chester 2Thank you for visiting the Hearing Aid Factsheet!
