Recent studies on hearing aid use have made an astounding discovery. Although hearing aid technology has improved significantly during the last decade, hearing instrument user satisfaction has not increased at the same rate! If you wear hearing aids or are thinking of pursuing hearing loss rehabilitation, this may be the most important article you read all year! Keep reading to learn how real-ear hearing aid measurement in Utah can provide you with a 5-star hearing aid experience.
What Is Wrong with Today’s Hearing Aids?
Reports published by Hearing Review and the Hearing Journal indicate that 34.25 million people in the United States suffer from some type of hearing loss. Of those people with significant hearing loss, 25% already own hearing instruments, and the majority of these owners experience moderate-to-severe hearing loss.
More than one million of these patients are not “satisfied” with their hearing instruments and confess to leaving them “in the drawer.” If hearing instrument technology and design have improved, why are people not having an improved experience?
Key factors expressed for keeping “hearing instruments in the drawer” are…
- Not enough benefit
- Poor fit
- Unacceptable discomfort
- Unsatisfactory performance with background noise
How to Improve Your Hearing Aid Experience
Studies have shown that if your audiologist or specialist adjusts your hearing aid solely based upon the manufacturer’s fitting algorithm, without real-ear hearing aid measurement in Utah, it may result in an inaccurate hearing prescription. Studies found that these initial-fit algorithms are often an inadequate amplification prescription, and research in England showed improvement in patient satisfaction when patients were fit with real-ear measurement.
What are Real-Ear Measurements (REM)?
Real-ear measurements provide a method for objectively assessing the accuracy of a hearing aid fitting. The
reason for real-ear measurements is that individual ears are very different between patients, and occasionally
one ear can even differ from the other ear on the same patient! Those differences have a major effect on the benefit a hearing instrument provides to the wearer. The only way to truly account for those individual ear differences is for your audiologist to take a physical measurement of how your hearing aid is amplifying sound in the specific ear canal. Real-ear measurements make this possible, and that is why they are considered the “gold standard” method for achieving a proper hearing aid fit.
See if You Qualify for Help from the Sound of Life Foundation
Need help obtaining your hearing aids? At Sound of Life Foundation, we have changed countless lives through the gift of Sound Since 2014. Our mission is to help individuals with the cost of hearing aids & to change lives one hearing smile at a time. If you or a loved one need financial assistance obtaining your hearing devices, please call our foundation at 877.435.7551 – we can’t wait to meet you!