subject: Finding The Perfect Hearing Aid For You [print this page] Hearing only a fraction of what is being said you can be difficult to function throughout daily life. However, such is the life of those with a hearing impairment. Those suffering from such a problem can range from the elderly who after years of usage has lost her sense of hearing to the construction worker who after years of continuous exposure to loud machinery has also lost his sense of hearing. Whatever the cause, a loss of hearing can pose significant obstacles in functioning in everyday life""unless you seek the help of a hearing aid.
Hearing aids come in all different shapes and sizes, catering to the needs, preferences, and even budgets of the impaired. Because of all the different models, its can prove difficult for someone with a hearing problem to decide which specific type he or she would like to use on a daily basis. Most aids function in a similar way. Tiny microphones pick up the sounds that the wearer might have missed due to the low volume of the sounds and an amplifier raises that volume to a level, which is audible to the wearer. While most aids work in this way, there are still a number of differences that distinguish them.
With Behind-the-Ear (BTE) aids, they sit behind your behind your ear and are connected to an ear mold that is placed inside your ear through tubing. They are very versatile, accommodating different levels of hearing loss. Moreover, they are customized to the wearer"s ear and are very durable devices. Another type of hearing device is the In-the-Ear (ITE) aids. Rather than fitting behind the ear as the BTE aids do, the ITE aids are placed directly inside the ear of the wearer. These devices are less versatile, catering only to those with moderate hearing loss. Those with severe impairment would not find these devices suitable. Moreover, a physical constraint of the ITE devices is that those with particularly small ear will not be able to fit into these aids.
Moreover, there are also devices that are placed completely inside the ear canal, rather than inside or behind the ear. The In-the-Canal (ITC) and Completely-in-the-Canal (CIC) are significantly smaller than the BTE and the ITE devices. In fact, certain models are so small that they are practically invisible. Not all people can utilize the ITC or the CIC due to their particular size or shape of the ear canal. This technology thus depends on the particular person and the particular model of the aid. Many people do opt for such canal devices because they are so small, most people will not even know that you are using a hearing aid.
Lastly, body-worn hearing aids are available to those with extreme cases of hearing problems. How this device works is that the wearer wears an external box, which is then connected to an earpiece. One downside to this device is the bulkiness of the large battery which is attached; however, it is with this larger battery that can supply the hearing device with maximum power, enabling those with severe hearing problems to pick up those minute sounds that they miss on a regular basis.
