Hearing aids will help many people in many situations but unfortunately they will not fully restore normal hearing. Thus, hearing aids are likely to be very useful but they are not likely to be able to restore all hearing.
What sort of hopes and expectations are useful? Basically those hopes and expectations which are likely to be met.
Hopes and expectations which are likely to be met include the following:
- A hearing aid will usually lead to hearing more sound.
- A hearing aid will usually lead to understanding more speech though some people with profound losses may use their hearing aids to hear only the rhythm of speech rather than the speech itself. And/or they may use them to background and/or warning sounds.
- A hearing aid may take quite a long time (two or three months or more) to get used to because it can take time to re-educate the hearing system to understand more speech and recognize more sound. For example, sound may seem a bit “tinny” at first, but with time you may not notice this.
- It can take a lot of practice to get optimum benefit from using a hearing aid
- People with certain types of losses may take longer to experience benefit from wearing a hearing aid. They may also have to practise much harder and much longer to gain benefit.
- There are likely to still be some gaps which need to be filled in by watching the speaker and by adopting various other strategies.
- A hearing aid may not feel very comfortable at first. If you are at all worried take it back as there may be something wrong with the mould.
However, please note that if you are finding that the sound really does continue to be strange then go back to the audiology clinic because it may not have been correctly set for you. The fact is that even if it has been issued to you with the help of a computer either the aid itself may be broken or the aid may not have been set to meet your actual requirements. The settings recommended by the computer may only be the starting point for meeting your particular type of hearing loss.
The amount of benefit will depend on your degree and type of hearing loss and the aid that you have been fitted with.