Smaller, Sleeker, Smarter Hearing Aids
By Denise Testa, Au.D.

There has been a revolution in the way hearing aids look, feel, function, and sound in the last few years. The newest models use digital signal processing, adaptive feedback suppression systems, directional microphones and digital background noise reduction to provide more natural sound and minimize interfering noise for the hearing aid user.

Eliminating Feedback
In the past, it was common to hear feedback or whistling when you tried to turn the hearing aid up or because there was an imperfect fit in the ear canal. The introduction of sophisticated adaptive feedback suppression systems improve the unwanted feedback (whistling) without compromising the quality of sound you receive from the hearing aid. With this new technology, there is no need to turn down the hearing aid and potentially decrease the speech sounds you wanted to hear.

Reducing Background Noise
A digital background noise reduction circuit in the hearing aid will clean up a noisy signal by detecting and suppressing unwanted noise and leaving the speech signal untouched, giving you with better speech understanding. Multi-band background noise suppression systems are able to optimize and exclude multiple non-speech noise sources, even in the most challenging noisy situations.

Small and Comfortable
The latest developments in hearing aids are called open fit hearing aids. These work well for those who have trouble or difficulties with speech clarity as a direct result of hearing loss in the high frequencies but can also be fit on a variety of hearing losses. Open fit aids are extremely small, lightweight, and nearly invisible to an observer, being tucked completely behind the ear with only a narrow tube traveling into the ear canal. CRT (canal receiver technology) open fit hearing aids are another option in which the receiver, rather than the hearing aid itself, is placed at the end of the narrow tube closer to the eardrum. In both types of open fit hearing aids, the sound you receive is natural, and the aid is comfortable to wear. These hearing aids reduce or eliminate the sensation of a plugged up ear that custom hearing aids or custom ear molds create.

Better Conversations
In the past, all hearing aids used omni-directional (non-directional) microphones, which pick up sound from all directions equally. The microphones receive sound naturally by capturing all the acoustic reverberations and tones, but this may not typically be adequate for hearing speech in noisy situations. Directional microphones, which are designed to pick up a range of sounds in a focused field, are now used when isolation of sound sources, such as speech and noise, is important. While the traditional fixed directional systems are beneficial when speech is directed at you, that situation is difficult to control in real life, especially in a conversation with multiple speech sources. The newest directional systems rely on adaptive directional microphones that focus on speech wherever it is in the environment and can maintain directionality for both low and high-pitched sounds.

Faster and Smarter
With digital signal processing, incoming sounds are converted to binary numbers, analyzed, and sampled at extremely rapid speeds and with great precision. These complex calculations provide the ultimate flexibility in providing individual solutions to hearing loss.

Denise Testa, Au.D. is a Doctor of Audiology. She is certified by the American Speech Language & Hearing Association, Northern Ohio Academy of Audiology, Ohio Board of Speech Pathology & Audiology, and the Ohio Speech & Hearing Association. To learn more or schedule an appointment, please call 330-433-1450.