hearing aids and implants

Hearing aids

A hearing aid is a sound amplifier - sound passes from the microphone through an electronic processor, which amplifies the sound and passes them to a receiver
Some hearing aids can reduce certain background noises

Patient has any auditory difficulty and there is a demonstratable hearing loss
Hearing aids can impair understanding of speech in some patients with cochlear or retro-cochlear (neural) hearing loss as the sound is already very distorted and the amplification will make the distortion worse

Provision of hearing aids may be difficult for people with severe hearing problems
Hearing therapists are sometimes useful for patients who are difficult to aid, they may help the patient manage their hearing loss in ways other than simply using amplification
A patient may attend with hearing problems, but no demonstratable hearing loss on pure tone audiometry e.g. difficulty with background noise - hearing aids not indicated but hearing therapy might be useful