What to Expect with Hearing Aids

Written by Élise Lévesque,

Audiologist

Hearing aids are devices designed for hearing-impaired people. They amplify sounds so that they can be better heard by the wearer.

If you just got hearing aids or are about to get some, having realistic expectations towards the benefits and limits of your hearing aids is very important to avoid setting yourself up for disappointment. Indeed, you must understand that while hearing aids are a very useful technological tool for hearing deficiency, they are not bionic ears. They will help you hear better, but they won’t give you back a perfect hearing ability.

Benefits of Wearing Hearing Aids

They will help you hear speech sounds.
They will help you follow conversations more easily.
They will help you better hear the sounds of the environment.
They will allow you to maintain your auditory system adequately stimulated.

Note that the benefits vary on whether you wear one or two hearings aids.

Limits of Hearing Aids

You won’t always understand in noisy environments.
You won’t always understand in big group discussions.
You won’t always hear sounds coming from afar.

Because of the limits of hearing aids, the use of communication strategies and lip-reading is very important to optimize speech comprehension.

What to Expect with Hearing Aids

Your hearing will be better in those situations:

Quiet environments (when you talk to one person, in the bedroom)
Environments with little background noise (walking outside, at the restaurant, in the living room)

Your hearing won’t be better in those situations:

Noisy environments (at the bowling alley, on a building site, at the sports bar)

However:

In noisy environments, you won’t hear less well with your hearing aids than if you didn’t wear hearing aids.
Your aid will be comfortable to wear.
You won’t hear a feedback whine when your aids are correctly placed in your ear.
A certain adaptation period will be necessary to fully benefit from the hearing aid.

Do you have questions about hearing aids? Contact one of ODYO’s members!