- In this video, I'm gonna cover everything you need to know
about hearing aid fitting ranges.
Coming up.
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Hey, guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona.
And on this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing-related information
to help make you a better informed consumer.
So if you're into that,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
And don't forget to click the bell
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At this point, you probably already understand
that the more severe your hearing loss is,
the more amplification that you need
to successfully treat your hearing loss.
For instance, someone with a severe to profound hearing loss
requires way more amplification
than someone who has a mild to moderate hearing loss.
Therefore, it wouldn't make much sense
to fit both of these hearing losses
with the exact same hearing aid, or would it?
To better understand what I'm about to talk about,
we first have to understand
the main components of a hearing aid.
Now I'm going to oversimplify hearing aid technology
a little bit here, but in general,
there are three main components of a hearing aid.
You have the microphone, the amplifier, and the receiver.
Each one of these components plays a major role
in how a hearing aid functions,
but when it comes to the severity of your hearing loss,
the receiver is key.
I want you to think of the receiver as a speaker,
which is the part of the hearing aid
that sends amplified sound into your ear canal.
Receivers come in different sizes.
Starting with the least amplification
and working our way to the most amplification,
you have Standard, Medium, Power,
Super Power, and Ultra Power receivers.
The availability of these different receiver sizes
gives us the ability
to treat nearly any severity of hearing loss
from mild to profound.
If you have a severe to profound hearing loss,
you need a really powerful receiver
to be able to amplify sound loud enough
for you to get audibility.
On the other hand,
if you have a mild to moderate hearing loss,
you only need a receiver that is strong enough
to treat that level of loss.
Simply put, you need to make sure
that you have the right size of receiver
for the type of hearing loss that you have.
Otherwise, nothing else matters.
Something to keep in mind is that not all hearing aid styles
can accommodate all of these different receiver types.
For instance,
if you want an invisible-in-the-canal hearing aid,
or an IIC, you cannot put a Super Power
or Ultra Power receiver inside of it.
The hearing aid is just too small
to accommodate these larger receiver sizes.
Not to mention, if you were to jam a Super Power
or Ultra Power receiver
inside of an invisible-in-the-canal hearing aid,
you would most likely experience feedback or whistling sound
because just too much sound
would be leaking out of your ear canal
and recycling back through the microphone.
So how do you determine which size of hearing aid receiver
is appropriate for your level of hearing loss?
Well, this is where hearing aid fitting ranges
come into play.
This is why all reputable hearing aid manufacturers
publish fitting ranges so you can identify
whether or not a particular receiver size
would be able to accommodate your level of hearing loss.
This also helps you to understand
whether or not a particular style of hearing aid
would be suitable for you as well.
First, you need to know your hearing loss thresholds.
You can find these on your audiogram.
You will need these Xs and Os
to determine which receiver size is appropriate
for each of your ears.
Second, you need to have an idea
of which hearing aid style you want,
whether it's an invisible-in-canal, a half shell,
a full shell, a receiver-in-canal,
or a behind-the-ear style hearing aid.
Third, you will need to find the fitting ranges
of that particular hearing aid style and brand.
They will often look something like this.
For instance, a Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aid
has its own fitting ranges,
and the ReSound ONE hearing aid has its own fitting ranges.
Once you've find the fitting ranges
for the hearing aid that you want,
you need to see if your Xs and Os
fit inside of the shaded range on the graph.
If the particular hearing you want
does not have a receiver option
that your thresholds fit into,
then you will not be a good candidate for that hearing aid.
The nice thing about receiver-in-canal hearing aids
is that they're very modular,
meaning that you can actually interchange
different receivers on the same hearing aid body
that goes behind your ear.
If your hearing loss gets worse over time,
all you have to do
is change out the receiver wire to a stronger one
to accommodate your new level of hearing loss.
When it comes to custom hearing aids,
your options become more limited.
Again, if you start
with an invisible-in-the-canal hearing aid
with your mild to moderate hearing loss
and your hearing loss gets significantly worse,
you can't take that same custom hearing aid
and put a stronger receiver inside of it.
It would require you
to actually go up in sizes of hearing aids,
which means that you have to get a brand new hearing aid.
If you have a profound hearing loss,
you may require a behind-the-ear,
otherwise known as BTE hearing aid,
that uses a thick tube
that goes into a custom earmold inside of your ear.
Another thing to note
is that just because your hearing loss thresholds
fall within the fitting range
of a particular hearing aid receiver,
it does not mean that you'll obtain
the full amount of benefit out of that receiver.
I regularly get patients who come into my clinic
with existing hearing aids and they have Power receivers,
but an open dome on that receiver,
which basically just allows all of the amplification
that they would receive from the Power receiver
to leak outside of the open dome,
cycle back through the microphones,
causing feedback and forcing the hearing care provider
to lower the amount of amplification that they receive.
It does no good if you have the correct receiver size
but you don't have the appropriate coupling
to make sure that that sound stays inside of your ear.
This is why selecting the appropriate dome
or your mold vent size is just as critical
as selecting the appropriate fitting range
of hearing aid receiver.
In fact, most hearing aid manufacturers
actually require that you have a custom earmold
if you're going to be using a Super
or Ultra Power hearing aid receiver.
Otherwise, you would never actually obtain
the benefit of that receiver
even if you fall inside of that receiver fitting range.
Okay, hopefully this video
has given you a better understanding
of what a hearing aid fitting range is
and has given you an idea
of which receiver size you ultimately need
to treat your hearing loss.
Most hearing aid styles
can accommodate a wide range of hearing losses.
You just have to make sure
that your hearing loss falls inside of their fitting range,
and it is a great place to start
if you're looking for new hearing aids.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments section below.
If you liked the video, please share it.
And if you wanna see other videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Also, feel free to check out my website, drcliffaud.com.
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