FAQ

The greatest cause of hearing loss is ageing. Other causes are prolonged exposure to loud noise, certain types of illness, ototoxic medication, heredity, middle ear pathology, or ear wax. The main types of hearing loss are Sensory Neural and Conductive. Sensory Neural loss, the most common type, occurs in the inner ear and interrupts the transmission of sound through the cochlea or auditory nerve. Conductive loss occurs when the transmission of sound through the outer ear or middle ear is interrupted. Many Conductive impairments can be treated medically. A Mixed loss is a combination of Sensory Neural and Conductive.

Don’t wait. The longer a person waits to correct their hearing loss the longer it will take to retrain the brain to recognize speech sounds. The brain must be stimulated by speech signals. If it is deprived of these signals, it “forgets” how to recognize certain sounds.

Our brain “hears” better with two ears. In noise, our brain cancels out some of the noise by comparing the signal from both ears. The brain cannot do this comparison unless it receives two signals at equal levels. Another advantage to amplifying both ears is being able to locate sounds. Also, hearing equally in both ears allows the patient to hear in all directions. They do not have a “weak side”.

Most hearing loss occurs gradually, usually affecting the high frequencies first. Speech has two main components, vowels and consonants. Vowels are the loudest and occur in the low frequencies. They contain about 70 percent of the volume of speech but only about 30 percent of the information we need for intelligibility. Conversely, consonants occur in the high frequencies. They contain only 30 percent of the volume of speech (they are soft) but have 70 percent of the intelligibility. A person with a high frequency loss may be able to “hear” low frequency vowels, but not be able to “hear” the consonants. The individual will get words mixed up and may complain that people “mumble”.

There are many factors which determine the cost of a hearing aid. A basic analog hearing aid has not really changed in price in over 30 years. An in-the-ear hearing aid back then was about $500-$600 dollars, the same price as it is today. As inflation has increased, manufacturing costs have decreased for this type of hearing aid. New technology has advanced over the years giving improved sound and therefore, providing better comprehension. Some of these improvements include programmability, sound processing, feedback reduction technology, and directional microphones. These advancements cost manufacturer’s money for research and development, which are passed on to the consumer. Another reason is the size of the hearing aid. Smaller hearing aids require smaller components. Small components are more expensive to manufacture. Lastly, trial periods have an effect on the cost of hearing aids. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies hearing aids as a prosthetic device. Once an in-the-ear hearing aid has been worn by a patient, it can no longer to be used for any other patient. If, after a trial period, the patient decides he or she does not want the aid, it must be destroyed. These returned aids increase manufacturing costs, which increases the cost to all consumers.