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Tuesday
February 09, 2010
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A Consumer's Guide to Different Hearing Technologies
In purchasing new hearing aids, there is now more choice for consumers than ever before. At last count, there were more than 600 different models from more than 60 hearing aid laboratories. How are you to make a choice? Are hearing aids different from each other? Do circuit "designs" make a difference in how you will hear with your hearing aids? This short guide was prepared to simplify for hearing aid consumers several of the hearing aid technologies now available in hearing aids.
The process of being fitted with hearing aids today includes the traditional hearing threshold tests by an air and bone conduction to determine the type and degree of your particular loss. Speech tests are used to determine the effect of your particular loss on your speech understanding. The newer hearing aid technologies now include other special tests used in the fitting process. All of these testing procedures allow your hearing aid professionals to use their knowledge of the multiple fittings possible for your unique loss for suitable correction.
Today's choice of circuits include a wide range of technological improvements at different prices. Allow your hearing aid professionals to use their skills and knowledge to assist you in your selection. You make the final decision. This guide was written to help you by simplifying hearing aid circuitry choices. Current electronics for hearing correction have created better hearing NOW for those with hearing loss.
Different Hearing Aid Technologies
* Hearing Aid Circuits *
Consumers are not expected to be electronic experts, but some understanding helps. Hearing aids all have different responses for different hearing losses. Hearing aids all make sounds louder. How hearing aids make things louder and with different responses is determined by the hearing aid circuitry. Hearing aid engineers are the professionals who design the circuits. Each laboratory's engineers have ideas of how to make the best hearing aids.
The different hearing aid circuits can be categorized into about six areas. We shall now describe these:
LINEAR
Linear circuits just make sound louder. They first appeared in 1902. The basic designs are still the same. The problem for the person wearing the aids is that speech and other sounds are amplified equally with no difference made whether or not the "background sounds" are present.
STANDARD COMPRESSION
Early electronic hearing aid wearers complained about the linear hearing aids when loud sounds like doors slamming or street noises bombarded their ears before they could turn down their volume controls on their hearing aids. So the second category of hearing aid circuit design was born. Standard compression hears a loud sound and lowers the hearing aid's "gain and governor" automatically.
ADAPTIVE COMPRESSION
A problem with Standard Compression is that it lowers both the gain and governor for all preset louder sound. Patients wearing these circuits report a "pumping" sound when noise is present and miss what people are saying when the compression circuit is lowering the hearing aid's sound. Adaptive Compression is a circuit design that recognizes different loud sounds in the environment and adjusts the time the compression works. This advanced circuit design makes speech clearer in noise and is the first "smart" hearing aid. Instead of just making everything louder, it chooses and adjusts its compression of sound.
NON-PROGRAMMABLE ADVANCED CIRCUITS
(Automatic, Multi Channel, Filtering and Directional Microphone Designs)
In the mid 1980's a new type of circuit design was called ASP. This stands for automatic signal processor. The "classic" ASP design made soft sounds louder, loud sounds softer and changed frequency response in the presence of noise. Some ASP designs performed only one or two of these functions. Multi-Channel hearing aids have been around for several years but new designs in this category provide good results for patients who have been using the other circuit designs described above. The multiple channels can now be manipulated by the lab to maximize fittings. Filtering technology is exemplified by the K-Amp design. There are other filtering circuits. Directional Microphones are not new but they are currently having a revival in combination with advanced circuit designs.
DEEP CANAL TECHNOLOGY
This technology was developed in Holland. Dutch hearing aid engineers found that hearing aids could give better results IF the distance from the tip of the hearing aid to the eardrum itself were reduced significantly. NEW impression techniques and materials were developed and this technology is called Completely-In-The-Canal. These instruments go close to the drum and give favorable results for many patients. There are choices of circuit designs in this category.
DIGITAL PROGRAMMABLE
This category has been in existence 1987. No two Digital Programmable Systems are the same. With these instruments computers are usually necessary
for the clinician to do the programming. The computers pick the "prescription". The hearing aids are down loaded in the clinician's oflice. For better results the specialist further adjust the initial hearing aid's response after the fitting. When hearing changes, a whole new "prescription" can be activated in the same hearing aid. The circuitry in many Digital Programmable hearing aids uses advance types of compression, directional microphones, multi-channels from two to eight programs, and sometimes remote controls.
Digital Programmable hearing aids DO make most patients hear better because of the flexibility of fitting available by using the computers and newer chips.
PURE DIGITAL
This last technology in hearing aid circuit design is the newest and most sophisticated. In Digital Programmable hearing aids the software drove the computers NOT the hearing aids. In so-called pure DIGITAL hearing aids, the digitalizing functions are now in the computers AND in the hearing aids themselves. These are the SMARTEST hearing aids yet! This technology is a great leap forward. The monitoring function of a hearing aid listening then deciding how to amplify has increased multiple times. Since there is now sampling of the environment 1,000,000 per second and then 32,000 per second before being sent to the hearing aids DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSOR, the monitoring function has dramatically increased. There are how three channels that will be independently controlled to maximize hearing in nearly all environments. This category of hearing aid is TOMORROW NOW!! This is the technology that has recently been used by President Clinton.
SUMMARY
In summary, we shall return to our original questions. "Are hearing aids different from each other?" The unequivocal answer is "YES". Today they are very different due to increased technologies. "Do circuit designs make a difference in how you will hear with hearing aids?" The answer here is also "YES". Each forward step in hearing aid circuitry has had as its goal better hearing for you. At the time, all the hearing aid technologies described in this sheet are available. The more sophisticated the hearing aid circuit is in its signal processing capabilities, the more expensive it usually is. The more sophisticated the hearing aid circuit, the better the sound quality. You decide with the help of your hearing aid professional.
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Hearing Aids and Audiology Services for the Hearing Impaired in the Greater Pittsburgh Region: |
413 4th Ave.
Tarentum, PA
15084
(724) 224-6811
Fax: (724) 224-2316
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141 Columbia Ave.
Vandergrift, PA
15690
(724) 567-7381
Fax: (724) 568-5014
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Allegheny County
Office
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Westmoreland County
Office
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office@ramettahearing.com |
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