You can’t underestimate the importance of communication: the imparting or exchanging of information. Through conversation, we can connect with the people around us. We can meet new people, foster friendships, express our opinions, share important news, and so much more. When hearing loss makes it difficult to take part in conversations, your personal life and professional life may suffer. Hearing loss can even put your safety at risk, as it increases the odds that you’ll miss audible signals of impending danger. Unfortunately, some people find it hard to admit that they are having trouble hearing. Understanding how hearing aids work can make it easier to embrace this life-changing technology.
Before we discuss how hearing aids work, we need to review the process of hearing.
Sound waves are a type of energy caused by vibration. In someone with normal hearing, these waves are collected by the outer ear and funneled into the ear canal. There, they cause the ear drum to vibrate. Three tiny bones inside your ear – the hammer, anvil, and stapes – transmit these vibrations to the cochlea, a snail-shaped organ that is filled with fluid and tiny hairs called cilia. As the sound vibrations agitate the fluid, the cilia detect the vibrations and convert them into electrical signals that the brain processes.
Hearing might seem instantaneous, but it a multistep process, so there are many places where things can go wrong. When disease, aging, or an injury cause damage to the small sensory cells in the inner ear, sounds need to be louder to be heard. This is called sensorineural hearing loss, and people living with this condition often find that wearing a hearing aid can be incredibly helpful.
When performers speak into a microphone, massive speakers amplify their voices so that their audience can hear them. Hearing aids work in much the same way. Despite their small size, they combine a microphone, amplifier, speaker, and the battery that runs them in a discreet, wearable unit.
Basically, when you wear a hearing aid, the sound waves that travel toward your ear are picked up by the hearing aid’s microphone and converted into a signal. The amplifier increases the signal’s strength, and this boosted signal travels to a miniature speaker. The speaker plays the sound at an increased volume, sending it down the ear canal to the inner ear, and the ear’s natural mechanisms take it from there.
Hearing aids come in a variety styles, including all of the following:
