By Theresa H. Bartlett, AuD
Have you ever recommended hearing aids to patients in your practice? How many of those patients follow your recommendation and purchase hearing aids? Of those who have, do you know how many of them don’t wear their hearing aids? Have you ever asked your patients why? There can be one or a combination of several reasons.
Patients often have less than reasonable expectations for what technology can actually do for them. In 20 years of practicing audiology, I’ve seen technology come a long way: hearing aids can do more to correct hearing loss today than ever before. However, hearing aids cannot restore someone’s hearing to normal – and they definitely cannot restore a patient’s hearing level to what it was ten or twenty years ago.
Hearing aids are called “aids” for this reason: their sole function is to “aid” people in hearing better. People who wear hearing aids should notice a significant improvement when hearing aids are worn, but their hearing will never be perfect. Hearing aids cannot replicate what the ears could once hear naturally.
What they can do is become a very effective tool in improving people’s lives.
Another reason most people stop wearing their hearing aids is that they hear too much. They often report they don’t want to hear “all that other stuff.” They want to hear their significant other, or their children or grandchildren, but not the background noise in the restaurant where they’re having lunch. The problem is, we all hear the background noise in the restaurant. The difference for people with hearing aids is that they have to train their brains how to hear again.
I often ask patients to visualize filing cabinets: I explain that the brain has organized acoustic files for all the sounds it hears with hearing loss. These files are neatly filed away. When we put hearing aids on, the brain is bombarded with all these new auditory files. The brain has to pick up each new acoustic file, listen to it and determine where it needs to be filed. Is it an important sound that needs attention? Is it just background noise? Once all these new acoustic files have been filed away, total acclimatization will occur. For some, this is a quick process, but for others, it takes time.
It’s important to make sure your patients are being fit by professionals who are trained to establish appropriate expectations. Counseling is an important tool in the successful fitting of hearing aids. I would highly recommend reaching out to audiologists in your community and familiarizing yourself with hearing aids and what they can actually do.
Theresa H. Bartlett, AuD is a Doctorate Level Audiologist who currently owns and operates a small, private, Audiology practice in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Bartlett specializes in Lyric hearing products and will soon be a Golden Circle Audiologist for Sensaphonics hearing conservation products. www.virginiahearing.com.
