What Should Users of New Hearing Aids Realistically Expect?
Seniors Choice Newsmagazine, February 2006
This is a very good question. For some reason, there are many misconceptions regarding what hearing aids will do for hearing impaired individuals. Some people have unrealistic expectations surrounding the amount of improvement they will get with hearing aids. On the other hand, other hearing impaired individual's have heard one too many negative stories regarding someone else's experiences with hearing aids. Neither of these misconceptions does anyone any favours. To help clarify this topic I have come up with the following list of "realistic" expectations.
When wearing hearing aids:
1. Your hearing in quiet environments (one to one communication watching TV, etc) should be improved.
2. Your hearing in moderate background noise should also be improved.
3. Your hearing in background noise is NOT going to be as good as your hearing in quiet.
4. Your hearing in loud background noise should be NO WORSE than without the hearing aids.
5. Soft speech should be audible, average speech should be comfortable; loud speech should be loud, but never uncomfortable.
6. Your hearing aids should be comfortable.
7. Your own voice should be "acceptable" to you.
8. There should be no feedback when the hearing aids are properly seated in your ears.
9. You may hear sounds you have not heard for a while (like footsteps or the refrigerator humming). This is not abnormal.
Be patient. It requires time to adjust to hearing aids. Your listening skills should improve gradually as you become accustomed to amplification. Research has shown that it can take up to a full year for new hearing aid wearers to become "acclimatized" to their new hearing ability.
Hearing aids WILL NOT restore your hearing capabilities to "normal" or to pre-existing levels.
There are varying degrees of improvement gained by hearing aids. The amount of improvement that a hearing impaired individual will actually obtain will depend on: (1) the severity of the hearing loss, and (2) the quality of the actual hearing aid. These expectations should always be discussed with your audiologist prior to ordering any hearing aids.
If you have any hearing-related questions please send them to me at
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or submit them directly to me at either of my offices. Colin VanBergen is a clinical audiologist, and manages both the Kelowna and Westbank offices of the Okanagan Hearing Clinic. |
