Hearing health care has plateau’s that you will encounter on you journey to your best hearing. When you were fit with your hearing instruments great care was taken in the testing, selection and fitting of the instruments. Just like our teeth, hair style, and eyes, hearing health can benefit from routine care and maintenance. After your fitting you will be set with follow-up appointments.
These appointments will first be for the fine-tuning of the hearing instruments. After several appointments and you are happy with the sound expectations of your “new ears” then you will be set with cleaning appointments for your hearing aids and your ears.
In the beginning, adjusting to new hearing instruments can be challenging. Even though Starkey’s latest hearing instruments make just under 2 billion automatic adjustments a 24 hour period… you still will be experiencing sounds that you have not heard at normal levels in a while. I get many people that tell me, ” I don’t know what normal is anymore”. At first, don’t panic, good hearing instruments self adjust, if something is bugging you in the beginning it probably won’t in a few days. With Starkey Hearing Instruments, after the fitting the the Ai sensors and processors along with the DNN360 ™ chip will learn and self adjust your hearing instruments constantly. It really is amazing how fast and clear these hearing instruments are. They measure and classify sounds and speech into different categories and calculate speech-to-noise ratio’s; thus trying to always provide the best speech signal for the type of background noise you are in.
A couple of suggestions for your appointments. First of all, Bring a third party. Spouse, family member or friend. They will have additional insight as to how well you are doing. If you are having difficulties understanding someone in particular, maybe they are soft spoken, then we can put you both in a noisy restaurant setting and adjust while you are in that type of environment. The hearing instruments record specific data that gives useful speech and noise information, however; if you are having difficulties in specific places then jot down some quick notes. How long are you wearing your instruments per day? The data log in your hearing instrument won’t lie! LOL! A minimum of 7 hours per day for most people… but if they are comfortable then wear them from the time you get up until bed. To help keep your brain healthy we strive for a wearing time of 12 hours per day. Did you know that 46% of people who get Alzheimer’s don’t need to get it! Crazy.. Protect your brain by correcting your hearing. It is the most single modifiable behavior to ward off dementia. It has now been proven that if you have just “mild” cognitive impairment that it can be reversed and improved upon by wearing hearing instruments just 7 hours a day. They must have the broadest bandwidth to make sure the brain is getting appropriate auditory stimulation to the brain.
Remember, they are hearing “aids” and our goal is to make them a useful benefit that “aids” in your everyday life. We want them to be a joy and not a hassle.
During your follow up appointments: areas of improvement are also appreciated. We don’t want to mess up one situation trying to improve another. Better hearing is a process. The best hearing takes participation by all parties involved.
If you are having problems understanding in groups of people or find yourself having some memory issues… give us a call and lets start with a hearing evaluation! 385-3497. To Hear Better Is To Live Better!!
By: Roseann B. Kiefer, B.A., BC-HIS