Can mild hearing losses be helped by hearing aids?

Hearing loss can often go undetected for years. Unfortunately, comprehensive hearing evaluations are often not included as part of the annual health care routine. Frequently, hearing loss can be in the moderate and sometimes severe range before the first full hearing evaluation is ever performed. In addition, many of our patients report that they perceived and/or their family noticed their difficulty hearing several years prior to scheduling a hearing evaluation. One of our goals is to increase the awareness and the importance of annual hearing evaluations. The earlier the hearing loss is discovered, even if the hearing loss is in the mild range, the sooner we can provide intervention. Until recently, we had few options to help a mild hearing loss. One option was trying "traditional" hearing aids, but patients with mild hearing loss often rejected them. Rejection of traditional style hearing aids usually stems from a change in sound quality of the patient's own voice called the occlusion effect. For example, the patient's voice may sound hollow or it may sound as if talking in a barrel. The other option was to wait until the hearing loss progressed to a more severe level. However, mild hearing loss typically results in difficulty understanding soft speech, women and children's voices, and difficulty hearing in background noise. With today's technological advances, we are now better equipped to provide intervention to the majority of hearing losses, including mild hearing loss. Several manufacturers now offer hearing aids specifically designed for early hearing loss. These "high frequency," open-canal hearing aids are designed to minimize the occlusion effect and amplify the high frequencies. By reducing the occlusion effect patients report greater comfort, a more natural sound quality and are more likely to accept the devices rather than reject them.