To view this, you need to install the Flash Player 7. Please go to here and download it.
Visit our Commercial Media Center to learn more about Glassman's Hearing Aid Service.
If you expect your vacuum sweeper to pick up golf balls, you may be disappointed.
-Dr. Jay McSpaden
Expectations
If you expect your vacuum to pick up golf balls, you may be disappointed. Likewise, if you expect
your hearing aids to give you normal hearing, you will be disappointed.
Not knowing how to use hearing aids properly is a major reason for them not being worn. They are not like eyeglasses, which can correct vision fairly well. In fact NO hearing aids available will restore hearing to normal! This is not like putting on new ears, and all of a sudden, you will hear everything well. However, with a little patience and practice hearing aids can make sounds louder and make communication a lot easier for you. In this sense, they are more like a bicycle; you must first learn to ride before you can appreciate the experience.
Your responsibility:
Your dispenser’s responsibility:
Remember, when you purchased the hearing aids, you also purchased services, including counseling
in the use of the aids, mechanical and electronic adjustment of the aids, warranty service, and
repairs when needed. To make your adjustment time easier, your hearing aid dispenser may ask you
to come back for post-fitting counseling and follow up care. You should keep these appointments.
Adjustment: What you will most likely notice first:
Fortunately, these concerns generally diminish within the first month of hearing aid use.
The first thing you must get reaccustomed to is living again with the continuous noise in your environment. This “auditory shock” caused by the flood of sounds, noises, and voices which suddenly break into your consciousness after having not been heard for years is much like the first impact of direct sunlight on a person who has lived in a dungeon. You must learn to associate sounds, ides, and relearn the meaning of various noises. At first, you may find it difficult to separate the important from the unimportant sounds.
You will go through an adjustment period in wearing hearing aids. Your dispenser should have the patience and skill to help you through this as you become accustomed to wearing your aids. Here are some suggestions which may make this period easier for you.
Suggestions During Adjustments
Begin with a comfortable volume level if your aid allows it. At first, keep the aids’ volume controls set to levels
that feel comfortable to you, even if you miss some of what is being said. As you adjust to using the aids you can
gradually increase these volume control levels.
Begin with easier listening challenges
Don’t overtire yourself
If the hearing aids begin to make you feel nervous or tired, turn them off or remove them. In a few weeks
you probably will be able to wear them from morning until night without fatigue or nervousness.
Re-learn the art of concentration
Because of your hearing impairment, you may have forgotten how to concentrate on what you hear. Be alert. Make a
conscious effort to pay close attention to conversations, to music, to the quality of the sounds that you now hear.
You will soon find that you are coming closer to the world around you.
If your loss is mild, or sudden
You may be pleased with your hearing aids from the very beginning. Suddenly, listening is easy again, and your
fear of gradually being shut off from the world is relieved. The adjustment period may last only a few hours.
If your loss is more severe or gradual
The absence of sound may have become a familiar part of your everyday world. The return of all the noises
constantly surrounded you-sounds you had forgotten- can be a confusing experience, and many of the specific sounds
may seem meaningless. In fact, the more gradual the loss of hearing has been, the more unpleasant and shocking it
may sound. A period of readjustment is necessary. If you have been long without hearing, don’t be surprised at what
happens the first time you’re confronted with the busy noises of daily life. Typewriters may sound like a machine
gun. As you walk across the floor, the unfamiliar sound of your own footsteps may be startling.
Hearing aids are designed to emphasize the sounds of speech.
Still, some sounds will lie outside the pitch range of speech and may sound changed and seem unfamiliar. This may
make it difficult to match the correct sounds to the word meanings. It takes practice to select what you want to
hear from all these strange sounds.
The simple fact is that you have forgotten what words really sound like- hearing vowels and consonants with their proper loudness. You actually are not ready for normal-type hearing. Your present hearing habits will have to be unlearned-and that will require a little time and practice.
To be sure, everyone wants to hear naturally. But you should not expect to hear the voices of your friends without any of the background sounds and noises that normally exist. The fact that you gradually (and quite unconsciously) lost use of background sounds does not mean that they were not at one time meaningful, and could be meaningful again.
Some unwanted sounds may seem excessively loud. When you had normal hearing you learned to block out or adjust to loud, unpleasant noises. You learned how to ignore traffic noises and to listen to a specific conversation. You learned how to “focus” your hearing by excluding other background sounds and echoes. Now that you wear hearing aids, you may have to learn how to do this all over again.
After the Initial Hearing Aid Adjustment Period
Once you have been fitted successfully with appropriate hearing aids, you will be able to function more effectively
among your friends, family, acquaintances, and business associates. Once more you will be better able to listen to
the music of your choice, go to sporting events and appreciate the addition of sound to sight, join in conversations,
be safer in traffic, and in fact, rejoin the mainstream of life.
By the end of an initial adjustment period, the benefits should be, in the simplest terms, a return to a more normal life-style. For best hearing, you may at times have to turn your head a little, incline it, or make a discreet adjustment to one of the controls, which will appear as nothing more than a natural motion.
As time goes by, you will continue to adjust to the experience of wearing hearing aids. Still, there may be certain sounds you find difficult to identify, or that you simply cannot hear even with your hearing aids. In some of these instances you can get extra help. Talk to your hearing aid dispenser to obtain more information about their use.
Contact Mark Glassman, and the team at Glassman's Hearing Aid Service.
Glassman's Hearing Aid Service
Omaha
3015 N 90th St
Ph. 402-571-1207
Fremont
33 W 6th
Ph. 402-727-7866
"My wife appreciates my hearing aids as much as I do. She claims it has helped my disposition. I know hearing aids have helped me enjoy my family and friends."
Chris Gutschow, Fremont, NE