Dr. Amy White provides further insight about what factors can affect success with hearing aids. While manufacturers boast life-changing technology and features, these promises are typically reserved for premium, top-tier devices. Similarly, online reviews are mostly going to provide information only about the latest and greatest models. Technology is evolving rapidly, and the hearing aid industry is no different; make sure you get a level of technology that fits both your lifestyle needs and your budget. To learn more about other hearing aid considerations, watch the video below.
Transcription:
Hi, this is Dr. Amy White, audiologist and owner at Elk Grove Hearing Care. Today I’m here to talk to you again about how to predict success with hearing aids. In the last video, we talked about how the audiogram and the speech in quiet and speech in noise testing plays into predicting your success with hearing aids. The second aspect to that is the technology that’s chosen.
If you’ve done any research of hearing aids on the internet, you’ll find there are many manufacturers who claim all sorts of fabulous outcomes with their hearing aids. And the reality is, technology has gotten quite good; new technology is pretty amazing, and they do have some really great claims in terms of how they help you hear well in background noise and on Bluetooth devices and so on. However, always keep in mind that all of these studies are testing their premium-level devices.
Now manufacturers generally have hearing aids usually somewhere between three and six tiers worth of technology, and as you go up in the performance of the hearing aids, you additionally go up in the price. So when you see reviews about the latest product and how great it is, just keep in mind that those research articles usually were done with using the premium model instrument. Kind of like when you read Car and Driver magazine or reviews on any sort of car, they’re almost always testing the premium model; it’s the same thing with hearing aids.
So when we start talking about levels of hearing aid technology, that is going to play directly into your success, depending on what your lifestyle needs are; we’ll go over that in a future video.
Keep in mind, as well, that technology with hearing aids, just like any other electronic device, changes very rapidly. So hearing aid manufacturers are releasing new products about every 18 months now. So if you’re buying a product that you know is old, older than that, maybe you got it less expensive, maybe it’s three or four generations old, that can make a really big difference in the performance, as these microchips get better and faster, hearing aids processing power improves significantly, which generally relates to better performance in background noise.
So keep these general things in consideration when you’re thinking about which technology level to purchase, and then let your provider kind of fine tune it by going over your specific needs to help figure out exactly which technology level might be best for you.
Thank you for listening. We hope to see you at Elk Grove Hearing Care.