Hearing Loss

ARE YOU SENSITIVE TO LOUD SOUNDS?

As you may know, most hearing loss is caused by exposure to noise. Approximately, 26,000,000 Americans between the ages of 20-69 have high-frequency hearing loss due to exposure to loud noises at work or in leisure activities. Approximately 80% of your speech is made of these "similar sounding consonants", having a hearing loss in this same high range area is the underlying cause of your communication problems.

As you already know, being unable to hear the higher frequency letters in speech makes it difficult to understand softer voices, such as womens' and childrens' voices. Noise exposure first damages the tiny nerve cells whose job it is to detect these higher, softer more important speech sounds, leaving you only able to hear the lower-pitched background noises.

Most people are surprised to learn most hearing losses are complicated by what is medically called, "RECRUITMENT". Recruitment happens when a small increase in loudness, feels like a HUGE increase in volume! Recruitment comes with a hearing loss caused by constant or loud noise exposure and happens more often with women.

The good news is today's advanced digital hearing aid technology can take care of this "loudness sensitivity" issue better than ever before. Personal recruitment challenges from being over-sensitivity to loud sounds, is exactly why many people don't wear their hearing aids . . . simply because their hearing aids are not properly fit these specific personal hearing and sensitivity needs.

With the latest automatic hearing aid technology, background noise is no longer quite the obstacle it used to be. The most important factor is not to wait too long before getting your hearing loss properly fit. Follow me?

You see, understanding speech is a memory function and if you have a hearing loss, your ears are working like "filters" blocking out information, in the form of speech sounds. Ignored long enough, your brain can literally "forget" how to tell the differences between all these similar letter sounds. When we test you for this it's called a Word Recognition Test (WRT). The higher your WRT score the better your results with hearing aids.

For example, I can fit two people of the same age, with the same hearing loss and the same hearing aid technology and one of them may have a Word Recognition Test score of 90% and the other a score of only 70%. The person with the lowest score is usually the one who puts getting their hearing aids off the longest. The longer you suffer from a hearing loss, the longer your brain has to forget how to recognize the differences between similar sounds. Hearing and memory are some of your most important connections. See "Sound Health" <>

We can help rehabilitate word recognition skills only to a point. Don't be left in the lonely, dark silence of confusion because you denied your symptoms. This need not be!

When the brain permanently loses its ability to separate similar sounds, even the best hearing aid technology won't restore your word recognition skills. This is why early detection is vital and also why we at The Great American Hearing Aid Company LLC, recommend using our, "Aural Rehabilitation Training" (ART). See "A.R.T."

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