Do I Need to Wear My Hearing Aids All the Time?

This is another question that I receive from my patients all the time. I do understand the basis for the question but on the other hand it does perplex me a bit.

Certainly, hearing aids are ‘aids’, they are devices designed to improve your hearing. Of course, they cannot replicate ‘normal’ hearing, or how you recall your hearing to be, ten, fifteen, twenty or so years ago. BUT they are the next best thing and who doesn’t want to hear and be part of the conversation?

We are truly lucky to be living in a world where these technological advances are even available. Before the advent of hearing aids, people suffered in silence and were basically isolated from their friends and family. They lived in a world of absence… absence of sound. Let that realty really sink in; not hearing your grandchild’s laugh, or your dog barking, or birds chirping in the trees, or the sound of waves hitting the shore, etc.…. We take all these sounds for granted until we no longer hear them.

And the best news is that hearing aid technology has improved immensely over time, from the advent of the first wearable body aid in 1938, to the ‘eyeglass’ hearing aids of the 1950’s to the first in-the-ear technology in the 1960’s all the way to today’s sophisticated digital technology.

These new hearing aids allow for improved speech understanding in noise and much greater natural sound enhancement. They no longer sound like artificial amplifiers.  And because of this improved sound quality, there is less unacceptance in wearing them. In fact, nowadays I find that the majority of my patients leave my office wearing their new hearing aids and from that point onward wear them every day, all day.

And that consistent, continued use actually facilitates the long-term benefits. You are actually stimulating your auditory system and in essence ‘relearning to listen’. I sometimes say it is like a muscle that is unused, it can start to atrophy. And the longer someone lives with hearing impairment, the harder is it to for the brain to ‘re-map’ itself. And who wants their auditory system to shrink?

So, in conclusion, the answer to that question is, the more you wear your hearing aids the happier your ears and brain will be.