Hearing aids should be worn as early as possible for senile deafness:
Due to the irreversibility of aging, senile deafness is composed of sensorineural deafness and mixed deafness, which cannot be treated by medication or surgery, but must be controlled and intervened by wearing hearing aids in order to achieve better hearing and rehabilitation. Therefore, hearing aids should be worn as early as possible to preserve residual hearing, delay aging, and improve quality of life. Age-related hearing impairment is a combination of aging of the auditory organs, nerves and centers. Age-related deafness is characterized by hearing loss and reduced auditory stimulation. If we do not intervene and control the hearing loss and use hearing aids for rehabilitation, the hearing neurons and auditory centers will atrophy and aging will intensify. Age-related deafness is characterized by an asynchronous decline in hearing and speech discrimination, and even more so in speech discrimination; without timely intervention and rehabilitation, it is difficult to recover language for a long time. The sooner hearing aids are worn, the better.
How to choose hearing aids for senile deafness.
Before fitting hearing aids, a comprehensive examination should be done in a general or specialized hospital to exclude or treat cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases (hyperlipidemia, diabetes), etc. After a detailed examination by an otologist and audiologist, a suitable hearing aid should be selected according to the hearing curve. Do not wear them at random as it may affect the residual hearing. (Hearing aids will not adversely affect residual hearing as long as they are properly fitted and used. Moreover, most hearing aids nowadays have automatic gain control function, which can effectively protect residual hearing)
In general, patients with mild deafness do not need to wear hearing aids; when the hearing loss is 35 to 85 decibels, patients can choose hearing aids, and those with hearing loss around 60 decibels can wear hearing aids with the best effect. Severe deafness can also be fitted, but the distortion of hearing aids increases and often does not achieve the desired effect. For total deafness, hearing aids can increase the sound, but their speech recognition rate is very low, so they have no practical value.
For patients with bilateral deafness, if the hearing in both ears is more or less the same, the hearing aid can be worn in rotation. In order to have good sound orientation and speech recognition, it is recommended that both ears be worn.
The specific hearing aids should be tailored to the situation of the elderly.
1.The outer ear canal expansion (muscle and skin) of the elderly starts to atrophy and relax, so it is recommended to choose the back of the ear machine; for example, for aesthetic or other reasons, you can choose the ear canal machine, but not the deep ear canal machine.
2.The typical hearing curve of senile deafness is high-frequency hearing decreases obviously, in a vain (steep) descending type or slowly descending type, while low and middle frequency hearing is still possible. It is accompanied by high-tone tinnitus or ergodic tinnitus. Aged deafness has poor language resolution and poor sound orientation.
3. Hearing loss occurs at the age of 30-40, intensifies at the age of 50-60, and reaches its highest point at the age of 60-75, and stabilizes at the age of 75-90. Older people should choose hearing aids with higher power to allow room for hearing changes and debugging.
4, the elderly hearing decline, vision will also decline, hand and body response is slow, optional hearing aids, hearing aid “switch, volume adjustment keys, function keys” should be easy for the elderly to identify, operation, the best choice of high-end hearing aids, the simpler the operation the better.
5, the elderly optional hearing aid is not the choice of brand, price, the key is suitable, good performance of hearing aids.
After the first time to choose hearing aids, the main matters of wearing and using hearing aids.
First of all, to hear the sound to adapt to hearing aids: in the first week of wearing hearing aids; may not be used to hear many long-lost sound, you can first wear 3 hours a day, every other week to increase 2 hours, until completely used to wear when needed, do not need to take off, until you can comfortably wear all day. This adaptation process usually takes 3-6 months and requires fine-tuning of the hearing aids with the help of the fitter to help improve the hearing effect.
The principles of wearing hearing aids in older adults are
Stage 1: Wear the hearing aid in a quiet environment (e.g. indoors) first;
Stage 2 gradually transition to a more complex environment (e.g. neighborhood, park, etc.) to adapt to environmental sounds;
The third stage is to try on the hearing aid in a complex noisy environment (e.g. supermarket, street, etc.). Second, to distinguish the sound to wear hearing aids: simply speaking, hear and listen to the language sound to be heard, distinguish the background sound (such as language, music, harmonious sound, noise)
The first is to practice concentrating on listening, which is also applicable for people with good hearing, and even more important for those who use hearing aids, by practicing to distinguish the sound you want to listen to from all the sounds coming from the hearing aid. The world is a noisy place, and hearing aid users need to learn that in a noisy environment, like any other hearing person, they can focus on the sound they want to hear to suppress the rest of the distracting noise, but if you have been hearing impaired for a long time, you will temporarily lose this ability. In addition, with hearing aids, you will hear a variety of sounds or noises that you have forgotten, such as the sound of shoes on the floor, trucks passing by, car horns and sirens, and the crash of plates. On the other hand, you will hear pleasant sounds again, such as children’s laughter, birdsong, music, and the clinking of ice cubes in cold drinks. You were born with the task of living happily amidst these two kinds of sounds, and as long as you practice concentration and train yourself to ignore the irritating sounds while welcoming the pleasant ones, your task will be accomplished. During the first few months of training, you should try to avoid listening in noisy places. As long as you practice persistently, you will get your reward.
Second, learn to listen to your own voice, it is likely that you will not recognize your own voice. However, this is a completely normal situation because you are now listening to your own voice through your hearing aid. At the same time, you should control and regulate your speech and pronunciation, so it is a good idea to practice reading aloud to yourself several times a day during this training period.
Thirdly, language training. The decline of language resolution in senile deafness is greater than the decline of hearing, after wearing hearing aids, the sound can be heard, but some “words, words, sounds” are inaudible and unintelligible.
Fourth, after the elderly wear hearing aids for the first time, please ask family members to cooperate more: the elderly may not adapt to wearing hearing aids for the first time, they may hear some environmental sounds that they could not hear before, such as the sound of running water, footsteps and other small sounds in life, etc. Many elderly people may feel bored because of this. Encourage the elderly to go through the adaptation period. Families should also pay special attention to the fact that the hearing function of the elderly is not fully restored at the beginning of wearing hearing aids, and the elderly lack listening for a long time due to hearing loss, so they should remind the elderly to pay attention before talking to them, and slow down their speech, spit out words clearly, and gradually train to restore their hearing function.