Shravani Speech & Hearing Centre Mumbai
Hearing Aids & Accessories
Most people need to wear a hearing aid when they suffer from a hearing loss. Hearing aid is an electronic device that picks up and amplifies the sound to make it louder so that a person with hearing loss can listen, communicate and participate more fully in daily activities in the both quiet and noisy situations.
Hearing aid components:
- One or more microphones to gather sounds and convert it to electrical impulses
- An amplifier to increase the strength of the impulses
- The receiver to transform electrical impulses back into sound waves and redirect them into the ear of the wearer.
- A battery to supply the energy source.
Hearing aids are available in variety of styles wherein they differ from their size, placement and degree to which they amplify and also the different technology they offer.
Style of hearing aid can be
- Body warn where the hearing aid is a bit bulky
- Behind the ear (BTE) wherein the instrument rests behind the ear and is attached to a custom made hearing aid
- In the ear (ITE) where the device is custom made hearing aid.
- In the canal (ITC) where they fit only in the outer portion of the ear canal.
- Completely in the canal (CIC) which is the smallest device available and is cosmetically desirable because it fits deeply in the canal and takes advantages of the ears natural resonance and shape.
Technology of the hearing aid depends on the electronics used. We have two terms "Analog" and "Digital" which refer to how a hearing instrument’s amplifier processes the sound.
Analog hearing aids convert sound waves into electrical signals which are amplified by making the continuous sound waves larger. They can be conventional or programmable.
Digital hearing aids convert sound waves into numerical course similar to the binary code of a computer before amplifying them. Because the code also includes information about a sounds pitch or loudness, the aid can be specially programmed to amplify some frequencies more than others.
A hearing test is the only way for you to know what hearing aid is best for your severity and type of hearing loss. The appropriate style of the hearing aid is dependent on the audiogram, shape and size of the canal, dexterity and of course, cost as hearing aids can be expensive! The rates vary from Rs.1000 to Rs. 4000/- for a body worn model and Rs. 4000 to Rs. 1,50,000/- for an invisible digital multichannel model.hearing aids & accessories