What to expect at the appointment
At the appointment the Audiologist / Audiological assistant will discuss your hearing loss, ask you questions about your hearing troubles and discuss a potential hearing aid fitting. You are welcome to bring a friend or relative with you.
The Audiologist /Audiological assistant will examine your ears. If it is appropriate to go ahead with the fitting the following will occur.
The Audiologist / Audiological assistant will select the appropriate hearing aid for you, considering your hearing loss, functional needs etc.
The Digital hearing aid will be adjusted to for your individual hearing needs. An internationally recognised prescription will be applied to the hearing aid based on the hearing test previously results obtained. The hearing aid will then be fitted to you and further adjustments made as required within the clinic.
Once the hearing aid is set up appropriately, you will be given rehabilitation guidance from the Audiologist / Audiological assistant, outlining how best to adjust to the hearing aid and what to expect. You will also be given all the practical information you require, such as cleaning, battery changing and free battery exchange.
You will also be given guidance of how to fit and remove the hearing aid and you will practice this with the Audiologist / Audiological assistant to ensure you are confident in this.
Please ensure you discuss any concerns or questions with the audiologist.
What to expect as a first time hearing aid user
Now that you have been fitted with a hearing aid, you will already be aware of how different the world sounds. It is very important at this initial stage to understand what to expect and how best to integrate your hearing aid into your everyday life.
Firstly, in the vast majority of cases, hearing deteriorates very slowly over a period of months and years. Because your hearing changes so gradually you adapt. You maybe aware there are certain sounds, like voices, that you cannot hear; but on the whole the world of sound is ‘normal’ to you.
When a hearing aid is fitted you will have a noticeable improvement in the areas you may previously have had a problem with, such as speech intelligibility, hearing the door bell, etc. However, there will be many other sounds that you are now hearing which you will not remember being so aware of, such as a newspaper rustling, the tapping of a pen when you are writing, etc.
The Habituation Process
We learn in very early life how to accept and reject different sounds and how to process them according to their importance.
When a hearing aid is first fitted the brain needs to relearn this skill and that takes time.
To enable the best possible adjustment it is important to start to use the hearing aid very gradually, starting at home for an hour or so a day and gradually increasing the amount of time the aid is used. Once you have acclimatised at home, you can begin to use the hearing aid out and about.
Please be mindful that there will be other sounds to relearn in any new environment.
This is called the habituation process, and regardless of the hearing aid you have been fitted with, you will need to go through this important process.
Expectations
It is also very important to understand and remember that a hearing aid is just that, an aid. Whilst they are getting better as technology improves, the hearing aid produces an artificial sound which is designed to improve your ability to hear and communicate. It can never replace natural hearing. With this in mind it is important to be realistic in what you expect from the hearing aid and what it will achieve for you.