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Today hearing aids have gotten better than in ever before. At Tennessee Valley
Audiology we offer a wide range of technologies to meet the individual needs of our patients. We have technologies that can
distinguish between speech sounds and other sounds with the goal of trying to make the speech signal more distinct and clear.
Some technologies help you to hear better in social situations by recognizing the direction of sound and down playing interferring
background noise.
When you are seen at our clinic, Drs. Dennis and Patricia Earl make every effort to assess and
understand your hearing problems and offer an individual solution for your hearing loss. We carefully discuss how we may be
able to help you with various technologies and try to give you a realistic idea of what you may expect from the instruments.
You need to remember that no hearing aid will restore hearing to normal so trying to create an understanding of what may be
realistically expectated from the hearing aid fitting is critical to success.
We are often asked whether one or two hearing aids are indicated. Most of the time two hearing aids will
deliver the best result especially in the area of hearing in social situations. The reason for this is that our brains need
a balanced input from two ears in order for us to hear in background noise, especially if the background noise is also speech.
We classify hearing aids into five levels of technology: economy, basic, mid-level, advanced and premium level technology.
How we determine which technology is most appropriate for a patient depends on several factors including level of hearing
loss, word recognition ability, listening situations where help is needed and financial concerns.
Financial concerns
can dictate that less than ideal amplification strategies are chosen. Although more simple technologies do not offer the same
benefit in noisier situations, they do offer help in many everyday situations. Economy hearing aids are priced around
$1000; a basic technology aid from $1500 to $1800; mid-range technology is $1800 to $2000; an advanced aid ranges in price
from $2300 to $2450 and premium technology ranges from $2650 to $3000 per aid.
At Tennessee Valley Audiology we
use all digital hearing aids from the most respected manufacturers including Widex, Oticon, Phonak, GN Resound, Unitron, Rexton,
Starkey and Audiosync. Each of these companies offer fine hearing instruments, but we do believe that all hearing
aids are not the same and certain aids work better for specific types of problems. Today, approximately 85% of hearing aids
fit are of the behind the ear type (BTE). Prior to 2006, most hearing aids were some type of custom in the ear (ITE) style.
Slim tube and receiver in the canal (RITE) hearing aids allow for the ear canal to remain open. By keeping the ear canal open
the hearing aid does not occlude the ear canal which eliminates several problems that have been associated with hearing aids.
Today, most hearing aid manufacturers have this type of product. With custom aids and traditional BTEs, the external
ears are mostly blocked which can cause a change in the sound of your own voice when you talk or amplifying sounds of chewing.
These new open BTEs have greatly changed how hearing aids look and work.
Size of hearing aids and features are important considerations. You have to think about whether you want hearing
aids that are fully automatic or do you want to control them. (Even if you control the hearing aids, they still automatically
adjust to changes in sound around you.) Most small hearing aids limit features such as telecoils and extra programs
which may be needed or desired. Some hearing aids use remote controls to control the hearing aids to allow you to control
aids which is too small to put the manual controls which allow you to manually operate the features on hearing aids.
Remember, it is important to know yourself and to think about whether you would prefer aids which are fully automatic or you
can control. These are things to discuss at your visit with Dr. Earl.
Some of the hearing aids we use are the following:
Premium Hearing
Aids: Widex Clear, Mini Mind, Mind Passion, Inteo, Mini Inteo, and Passion 440, Oticon Agil, Epoq, Dual 9, GN Resound Alera,
Live 9 and BE 9, Starkey S11 and the Phonak Ambra, Audeo S Smart IX.
Advanced
Hearing Aids: Widex Clear 330 and Passion 110, Oticon Acto Pro Wireless and Dual 7, Solana, Audeo S
Smart V, and Rexton Cobalt 16 and Insight.
Mid-level Hearing Aids: Widex Clear
220, Oticon Acto and Dual 5, Phonak Solana and GN Resound Alera 7 and BE 7.
Basic Technology Hearing Aids: Widex Real, Real Mini and Passion 105, Phonak Cassia, Oticon Ino Pro and
Delta 4000, GN Resound Alera 5 and Rexton Bridge.
Economy Hearing Aids: Oticon Ino, Rexton Day, Starkey E, and Phonak Milo.
Web Links:
Widex
GN Resound
Phonak
Oticon
Vivatone
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