If you're like millions of other people you really did not fully understand what you bought when you purchased your new digital hearing aids. The hearing professional told you what you needed and you trusted them. I get asked all the time to explain what makes a digital hearing aid different. Digital hearing aids use computer technology. The comfort and sound level that you hear can be custom-tailored to your unique hearing loss. This is accomplished by connecting the digital hearing aids to a computer and programming them to your loss. But, there are non-digital / analog hearing aids that can be programmed this way too. So, what are the differences between digital hearing aids and analog? Hearing aids receive sound through the microphone. Distortion and noise are added to the sound from the microphone. This is because microphones make noise. Analog hearing aids pass the sound on to you with the noise and distortion. Digital hearing aids take sound as it comes into the hearing aids and clean it so that there is less distortion and noise. The sound is then sent to the amplifier, where your digital hearing aids measure the sound and decide how much power to add in order for you to hear. After being amplified the sound is sent to the receiver ( the speaker ) and is then cleaned up again before being sent to your ear. This is also where digital hearing aids look for feedback ( whistling ) and work to cancel it before the feedback happens. Digital hearing aids actually perform millions of complex calculations in less than the blink of an eye, so fast you cannot even tell it has happened. The whole process is incredibly complicated. Digital hearing aids are able to be set more precisely to your hearing loss. Digital hearing aids also have a wide array of circuitry inside them that control the comfort of the sound and make speech easier to hear in noise. Why Do Some People Have Difficulty Changing from Analog to Digital Hearing Aids? Some people who have worn analog hearing aids for a long period of time have been unsucessful when they first tried digital hearing aids. If digital is so much better, why do these people not like them? We are conditioned over time to like or dislike things. Most people didn't like certain types of food when they were young, but later on in life they learn to enjoy it. This is called developing a taste for it. The same is true with switching from analog to digital hearing aids, especially if you were happy with your analog hearing aids. Your brain becomes accustomed to hearing sounds a certain way, particularly if you felt positive about the way it sounded with your analog hearing aid. When you first put on your digital hearing aids the sound is much brighter. This can be overpowering to some and the immediate reaction is to not like it. That's when many people make one of two mistakes. They try to tough it out and get used to their digital hearing aids, or they just give up. The problem with toughing it out is that it can actually become painful to hear all that sound when your not used to it. Then your new digital hearing aids becomes your enemy! Giving up doesn't help anything either. When this is the case, the best way for you to adapt to your digital hearing aids is gradually. Your professional can tone them down so that the sound is comfortable, and then gradually introduce more sound over time as you adjust. It may take several visits to the office for adjustments until you get the maximum benefit from your digital hearing aids. But if you persevere, your digital hearing aids will reward you with much better hearing.
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