We all enjoy a good bargain. But when it has to do with your health, be careful what you purchase and pay attention to the little details.
The names “hearing aid” and “hearing amplifier” may seem similar but they are actually entirely different devices. And making the wrong choice could have important ramifications for your hearing and your general health.
What is a hearing amplifier?
A little device that goes inside of your ear, a hearing amplifier increases the volume of outside sound. Technically categorized as personal sound amplification products by the government, these gadgets tend to be fairly simple and one-dimensional. A hearing amplifier is like turning the volume up on the world.
These devices are typically not suggested for individuals with moderate to severe hearing loss because of their one-size-fits-all approach.
Clear difference between hearing aids and personal amplifiers
Once consumers learn that hearing amplifiers are not recommended for people with even modest hearing loss, the differences between the two devices begin to become pretty plain. Hearing aids, obviously, are encouraged for people with hearing loss.
Both hearing aids and hearing amplifiers have the ability to increase volumes. The primary difference between the two devices is how cutting edge that amplification is.
- Hearing aids are specifically manufactured to help you process speech. To some extent, that’s the result of the uneven way hearing loss develops, but it’s also because communication is such an important function of your hearing. Because of this, hearing aid makers have invested enormous resources into maximizing the clarity of speech above everything else. In order to make certain voices come through clearly even in a noisy room, sophisticated technology and algorithms are packed inside of modern hearing aids.
- Whatever environment you find yourself, your hearing aids can calibrate to it. There are a number of variables that will impact the exact acoustics of a space. These adjustments can even happen automatically with some modern hearing aids. Other models can be tuned with a smartphone or a dedicated device. By making small adjustments to the settings of your hearing aid, you’re able to hear better in a wider variety of settings, meaning there will be fewer locations you wish to avoid.
- With hearing aids, only particular wavelengths of sound are boosted. That’s because people often lose their hearing one wavelength at a time. Either high-frequency sounds or low-frequency sounds generally disappear first. Hearing aids work to fill in the holes in your hearing rather than just making everything louder. This selective strategy is a lot more beneficial for individuals with hearing loss.
To put it bluntly, correctly treating hearing loss depends on these capabilities. And these are features that are not present in most personal hearing amplifiers.
Finding the best option at an affordable price
Neglected hearing loss can contribute to cognitive decline, not to mention increasingly diminished ability to hear. With amplifiers, you’re very likely to do more damage to your hearing because the device doesn’t distinguish frequencies and will most likely turn everything up to unsafe volumes. And who wants to do that?
Unless your hearing loss is being caused by earwax, hearing aids and certain surgeries are the only authorized treatments for hearing loss right now. You won’t save any money in the long run by neglecting to get treatment for your hearing loss. Neglected hearing loss has been shown to increase your overall healthcare costs more than 40 percent. The good news is, there are budget friendly solutions. We can help.
References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hearing-loss/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20373077