The Role of the Hearing Care Professional

Hearing loss is one of the fastest growing chronic conditions worldwide. Most people confuse a decrease in hearing acuity with a decrease in hearing intensity, but the most important problem is a decrease in word discrimination.

The only appropriate way to treat hearing loss today is to restore hearing ability through hearing aids. This means that they are intended to “restore” the hearing of a hard of hearing person to the hearing levels of the average person. They are not therapeutic devices. We must always bear in mind that we are basing our hearing on a “machine”.

Responsible for the process is the Hearing Care Professional.

So let’s look at what is the Role of our Hearing Care Professional.

The first and foremost responsibility of the hearing care professional is the proper selection of a hearing aid for the hard of hearing individual based on their needs.

Evaluating and prioritizing the needs of a hard of hearing person certainly starts with assessing their hearing. What form of hearing loss do we have and at what level is it (mild, moderate, severe, profound)? Then we look at the other parameters. Age, mobility, hearing canal size, social life, and lastly his financial ability.

After the selection of the hearing aid, and of course the construction of the shell or earmold, depending on the type of hearing aid, comes the second point in the hearing care professional’s field of responsibility, perhaps the most important, which is the correct adjustment of the hearing aid. The usual audiological protocols followed to properly fit a hearing aid include specialized measurements (Audiometry, Verification with REM, Speech Mapping, etc.), as well as an adjustment period of at least 3 weeks for novice hearing aid users, with gradual use and gradually increasing hearing aid performance.

Most modern hearing aids contain specific software for automatic fitting and acclimatization of the hearing impaired person, however, to work they require proper programming and knowledge of the respective fitting protocols, as well as supervision by the hearing care professional at each stage of fitting to correct any imperfections or failures of the initial fitting.

The most common mistake made by hearing care professionals is that they succumb to the demands of the hard of hearing for unseen hearing aids without the hearing aids being able to cover their hearing loss, or being marginal for it. Generally in profound hearing loss we avoid fitting in-the-ear hearing aids except in cases of marginal coverage but two hearing aids. Bilateral fitting always gives us advantages one of which is the need for lower adjustment of each hearing aid. Another reason why we avoid the use of in-the-ear hearing aids in high hearing losses is that we always want to have a perspective in our fitting so that we can cover future deteriorations of hearing within normal limits.

In short, the process of discussion, evaluation, hearing aid selection, measurement, testing and final fitting can take about 1-2 hours, so it is always a good idea to make an appointment with our hearing care professional, and after the first fitting the usual time until we have the full results of the fitting can be up to 90 days (adjustment period).