How Much Will Hearing Aids Help Me by Melissa K. Rodriguez

>> Melissa Rodriguez: [music] So if you found out that you have hearing loss or suspect that you have hearing loss, you probably have questions about hearing aids and how much will they help. That's a great question. [Inaudible] hearing loss is permanent. So there's no way we can go in and fix the nerves. What a hearing aid does is it fills in the gap. So I like to break it down into two things - ear hearing and brain hearing. As your nerves in your ear begin to die, which is what causes hearing loss, the ear doesn't send the signal to the brain that the brain needs. So if you have a whole world of signals, you may be missing a little corner of it, and so the brain stops having to process those types of sound. So when you get hearing aids, and you begin hearing that corner again, well, it is going to sound different. It may sound tinny. It may sound just really crisp and clear. It depends on the type of hearing loss you have and how severe it is before you get hearing aids as to how big that change will be. And then as far as how much will hearing aids help me, well, that all depends on your hearing loss. Remember we talked about the ear hearing and the brain hearing? Well, the hearing aid can help the ear hearing, but if you've had a hearing loss for 15 or 20 years, and you keep thinking I can wait a little longer. Oh, I'm just going to wait a little longer. I'm doing OK. I'm going to wait a little longer. By the time you think, OK, it's time for help, your brain has been starved of auditory information for so long that when given that auditory signal, it may or may not recognize it. That's something that we'll find out during your hearing test, and you should ask your hearing care provider how well will I be able to hear with hearing aids. Is it 100 percent, or is it 50 percent or somewhere in between? We will always let you know, and when we fit the hearing aid, we're going to do further testing to make sure that that hearing aid is getting you to your optimal hearing. [ Background Noise ]