What happens at a hearing test?
Your Freedom audiologist will carry out a thorough evaluation of your hearing. This includes a number of tests which measure the sound levels you are able to detect in several different scenarios. These tests will confirm if you have any hearing loss and what the causes may be.
Your Freedom audiologist will then discuss the results with you and determine what the next steps are. If a level of hearing loss is detected, your audiologist will discuss which of our range of state of the art hearing aids is right for you.
Hearing loss treatment is a simple process that can quickly get you back on track and enjoying life to the fullest. The sooner you take this first step, the sooner you can begin your journey back to better hearing.
Will I need one hearing aid or two?
Like our eyesight, our hearing relies on the input from both ears to locate sound sources. Our ears allow us to focus on specific sounds and conversations. Hearing with both ears helps the brain to distinguish speech from noise more easily than with just one ear. It is therefore vital that both ears work equally well to achieve the most natural hearing experience. This use of both ears to hear properly is call binaural hearing.
Whether you will need one hearing aid or two will depend on whether hearing loss has occurred in both ears.
Recent studies have shown that those wearing two hearing aids rather than one understand more clearly and enjoy a better quality of sound. Approximately two-thirds of new hearing aid wearers opt for two hearing aids, and these wearers report a higher level of satisfaction than those who opt for a single hearing aid.
What is it like using a hearing aid for the first time?
When you use a hearing aid for the first time, you’ll notice that the hearing process feels different. That’s because your brain has to actually re-learn how to hear sounds – especially the complex range of frequencies in human speech.
Here are some observations made by first-time hearing aid wearers:
- Your voice may sound different to you at first.
- Hearing in noisy situations will improve, but not as much as hearing in quiet places.
- It takes time to adjust to wearing hearing aids
This adjustment period is entirely normal, and before long you will start hearing the sounds you’ve been missing. You may begin to notice sounds you haven’t heard for a while, such as the hum of household appliances or the subtle sounds of nature.
Research suggests that comprehension of speech increases over a period of several months after first starting to use hearing aids. The longer you wear them, the more natural and clearer these sounds will become.
Spending time adjusting to your new hearing aid is a worthwhile process which will ultimately allow you to appreciate every single sound and enjoy hearing all over again.
How can I get the most out of my hearing aids?
Making the decision to purchase hearing aids is just the beginning of the journey to better hearing. The following steps can make communicating easier when you are adjusting to your new hearing aids.
- Moving closer to the person who is speaking
- Looking at the person who is speaking and sitting face-to-face in a quiet room
- Minimising distractions; for example, doing dishes at the sink and trying to have a conversation is difficult even for those with normal hearing
- Trying different locations in a room that has poor acoustics
