Who doesn’t enjoy getting a good bargain? But when it has to do with your health, be careful what you buy and pay attention to the small details.
We know, it can be confusing, the names are very similar, but hearing aids and hearing amplifiers are not equivalent. And making the wrong selection could have significant ramifications for your hearing and your general health.
What is a hearing amplifier?
A little device that goes inside of your ear, a hearing amplifier increases the volume of outside sound. Technically categorized as personal sound amplification products by the government, these devices tend to be quite simple and one-dimensional. A hearing amplifier is like cranking the volume up on the world.
Because of their one-size-fits-all approach, hearing amplifiers are not appropriate for people who have moderate to significant hearing loss.
Hearing amplifier are not hearing aids
It starts to become fairly obvious that hearing aids aren’t the same as hearing amplification devices when you recognize that amplifiers are not recommended for people with even moderate hearing loss. Obviously, hearing aids are recommended for people who cope with hearing loss.
Both hearing aids and hearing amplifiers have the ability to increase volumes. The biggest difference between the two devices is how cutting edge that amplification is.
- Whatever environment you find yourself, your hearing aids can calibrate to it. The acoustics of any given space will change depending on a lengthy list of factors. Some hearing aids can fine tune to these changes automatically. A dedicated device or smartphone can tune hearing aids that don’t do it automatically. By making small adjustments to the settings of your hearing aid, you’re able to hear better in a wider variety of environments, meaning there will be fewer locations you wish to avoid.
- Hearing aids are designed to pick out and magnify certain frequencies of sound. That’s because people often lose their hearing one frequency at a time. Either high-frequency sounds or low-frequency sounds commonly vanish first. Instead of making everything louder, hearing aids work to plug holes in what you’re hearing. For people who have hearing loss, this selective approach is more effective.
- Selecting and amplifying speech is one of the main functions of a hearing aid. To some extent, that’s the result of the uneven way hearing loss develops, but it’s also because communication is such a fundamental function of your hearing. Because of this, hearing aid makers have invested monumental resources into enhancing the clarity of speech above everything else. There are sophisticated algorithms and processes working within hearing aids to make sure that, even in a crowded and noisy place, voices come through loud and clear.
To put it bluntly, properly managing hearing loss depends on these capabilities. Usually, personal amplifiers don’t have these abilities.
Finding the best option at an affordable price
Untreated hearing loss can contribute to cognitive decline, along with increasingly diminished hearing abilities. With amplifiers, you’re likely to do more damage to your hearing because the device doesn’t differentiate frequencies and will most likely turn everything up to unsafe volumes. And that isn’t good for anyone.
Unless your hearing loss is from earwax, hearing aids and some surgeries are the only authorized treatment options for hearing loss right now. Neglecting hearing loss and avoiding treatment doesn’t save you money in the long run. Overall healthcare costs have been found to increase by more than 40% with neglected hearing loss. Luckily, there are affordable options. We can help.
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References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hearing-loss/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20373077