Getting hearing aids to treat hearing loss is an important step, but it's not the finish line. Adapting to hearing aids is more like learning how to drive than it is learning how to read with new glasses. It’s a process that takes time, commitment, education and patience.
Five Steps To Hearing Success
The following principles have been used by thousands of hearing aid wearers to successfully transition to better hearing health.
1. Acceptance
Surprisingly, the first step begins before the purchase of hearing aids. Admitting and accepting your permanent hearing loss prepares you to get the help you need, to stop hiding or denying a hearing problem, and to end the pretense that you understand speech when in reality you may not.
2. Positive attitude
Step two is about making a personal choice to achieve better hearing with a positive attitude. Simply purchasing hearing aids does not signal success. To overcome hearing loss, you must have a desire to learn and determination to increase your ability to hear. Those who approach hearing aid use with a positive attitude are far more likely to achieve success.
3. Education
The most effective remedy for hearing loss is personal education. The more you know about your hearing loss and treatment, the more actively you can participate in your adjustment to hearing aid use. Hearing requires more than the ears. It is a complex function that requires the cooperation of the brain and your other senses.
4. Realistic expectations
The fourth principle of success is to set realistic expectations. Hearing aids will help you hear better—but not perfectly. Focus on your improvement and remember the learning curve can take anywhere from six weeks to six months—success comes from practice and commitment.
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Read about managing auditory confusion
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When you first begin to use hearing aids, your brain will be startled to receive signals it has been missing. The brain needs time to become familiar again with the high frequency sounds of speech and environmental noises.
Re-acclimating your brain to true sound, after years of distortion caused by hearing loss, is like priming a pump. You’ve got to stay with it long enough for the water to flow. Once it is flowing–and it will flow–the hardest part is over. Your perceptions will improve over time, as the true sounds of everyday life are re-introduced to your consciousness after not being heard for years.
At first, all sounds will seem loud. But as these sounds become part of your subconscious again–the true pitch of the telephone, the sound of your clothes rustling as you walk, the whoosh of your air conditioner or the hum of your refrigerator motor–will not seem loud in relation to other sounds–as your brain begins to prioritize them.
5. Practice and patience
Finally, the fifth principle of success is a combination of practice, time and patience. Once you have logged sufficient hours for your brain to re-acclimate you will be able to hear without thinking so much about hearing.
It’s a good idea to begin with a schedule in which you wear your hearing aids part time and gradually work up to wearing them from the time you rise until the time you go to bed. Many hearing professionals recommend listening to books on tape as a way to practice hearing and understanding. In the first few weeks, if it is too tiring, rest. Then try again. Reach out for support and stick with it. The payoff is immense.
Next page: New hearing aids can be frustrating if you expect to hear perfectly right away. Read
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