Fitting Your Hearing Aids.

President of Healthy Hearing, Mandy Mroz, AuD says: Hearing aids work best when fitted and adjusted properly. Learn what goes into a successful hearing aid fitting and how to get the most from your experience.

Assessment of hearing aid needs

Your hearing care professional will begin the selection process by conducting an in-depth consultation with you to learn more about your lifestyle, your expectations, your personal preferences and your thoughts on any previous experiences with hearing aids. Your hearing test results, along with this information, will help the professional pull together some options for you to review.

Hearing test results

Your hearing test will produce an audiogram that will help you and your hearing care professional pick the best hearing aid style for you. The degree of your hearing loss will determine which styles may work best for you, with smaller models generally suited for milder hearing loss. If you’ve never worn hearing aids before, this primer on types and styles of hearing aids may be useful.

What are your lifestyle needs?

When considering your hearing aid, it is important for the professional to get a picture of the lifestyle you desire. You may have gradually avoided certain environments and social situations as your hearing loss worsened. Now is the time to think about what you’d like to be able to do with the help of your new hearing aids! For example, if you spend your evenings talking on to family and friends on the phone, you’ll want a hearing aid that works well with your phone. If you work in a busy office, a hearing aid and assistive listening devices may be recommended to make group conversations easier.

Generally, more advanced digital hearing aids are designed for people who encounter many different listening situations with varying degrees of background noise. For sedentary people who are mostly at home with little background noise, basic models may be recommended. (Keep in mind that if mobility or traveling is a problem, seeing an audiologist using telehealth may be an option.)

What are your preferences?

There are many different types of preferences that can affect hearing aid selection. Do you want hearing aids that are nearly invisible, or would you rather have something large enough that allows you to pick a bright color and show off your style? Do you prefer to have control over the volume of your aids or would you prefer to have automated technology that changes it for you? Do you want gadgets, like remote controls and wireless accessories for your hearing aids?

Your preferences may be affected by your level of manual dexterity, especially when it comes to changing hearing aid batteries, which can be tiny. Will you be willing and able to change a small battery more often or would it be better for you to have a larger style that requires less frequent battery changes? What about rechargeable batteries that you recharge every evening? These are just a few of the preferences that the hearing care professional will explore with you.