Monday 7 December 2009

Can you Self Programme your own Hearing Aid?

If you are suffering from hearing loss, except for extreme deafness, there is only one practical way to restore your hearing and that is to wear a Hearing Aid.

All Hearing Aids do is collect the sounds you wish to hear, amplify them and then transfer the amplified sound to your eardrum. This allows the hearing impaired to hear sounds that have been very hard to hear such as voices etc.

Sufferers of hearing loss should investigate what kind of frequencies etc they are finding it difficult to hear. It can be for sounds like voices or higher sounds such as music. By visiting an audiologist, who will test your hearing, you will know exactly which band of sounds need the most attention. Digital Hearing Aids can be programmed using a computer which will take the results from the audiologist and set up the circuits within the Aid to compensate exactly for where loss of hearing is occurring..

The disadvantages of this procedure are that you have to spend time and money visiting an audiologist to have him set up your Hearing Aid. Also over time your hearing loss may change which will mean further visits to the audiologist for him to readjust your Hearing Aid to the changing nature of your loss of hearing. Self Programming Hearing Aids are practically the same as any other Hearing Aid with the same specification except that they remove the necessity of visiting an audiologist to be set up. There are two main types of Self Programming Hearing Aid; the simplest will have a small number of controls that can be physically altered either by a very small screw driver or by a small variable control. These types have a very limited range of variation such as volume/feedback, low frequencies on high frequencies volume.

These simple manual adjustments mean that your ear adjusts to the level of hearing depending on what you want to listen to. This can be a great advantage in for example, when watching television you can increase the response of your Aid and not have to turn the TV volume up thereby possibly annoying other’s in the room. Also conversely you can turn down the volume if the noise becomes too loud. The second type of Self Programming Hearing Aid is by using computer software and programmer .These are supplied by the Hearing Aid supplier and allows you to programme your own Hearing Aid through your computer in the same way as an audiologist would do. You will be able to perform incremental adjustments on your Hearing Aid therefore giving you a very detailed set up over the full range of frequencies.

The Main benefits of Self Programming Digital Hearing Aids are that they allow you to change the level of amplification yourself without having to return to an audiologist to have it re-calibrated.. As this can be carried out by yourself almost immediately you will have the full use of your Aid for the maximum amount of time. Not having to visit the audiologist you save a great deal of time, money and frustration.
For further details and information visit Self Programming Hearing Aids

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