At this appointment the Audiologist / Audiological assistant will discuss your hearing loss, ask you questions about your hearing troubles and discuss a potential hearing aid fitting. You are welcome to bring a friend or relative with you. Please let the audiology team know prior to, or during your appointment if you have any specific communication needs, or if you would like our written information in a different format.
The Audiologist / Audiological assistant will examine your ears. If it is appropriate to go ahead with the fitting the following will occur: -
The Audiologist / Audiological assistant will select the appropriate hearing aid for you, considering your hearing loss, functional needs etc.
The hearing aid will be adjusted to for your individual hearing needs. An internationally recognised prescription will be applied to the hearing aid based on the hearing test results previously obtained. The hearing aid will then be fitted to you and further adjustments made as required within the clinic.
Once the hearing aid is set up appropriately, you will be given rehabilitation guidance from the Audiologist / Audiological assistant, outlining how best to adjust to the hearing aid and what to expect. You will also be given all the practical information you require, such as cleaning, battery changing and free battery exchange.
You will also be given guidance of how to fit and remove the hearing aid and you will practise this with the Audiologist / Audiological assistant to ensure you are confident in this.
Please ensure you discuss any concerns or questions with the audiologist.
Please read this prior to the fitting appointment:-
Once you are fitted with a hearing aid or aids, it’s very important at this initial stage to understand what to expect and how best to build your hearing aid into your everyday life.
Firstly, in the vast majority of cases, hearing deteriorates very slowly over a period of months and years. Because your hearing changes so gradually, you adapt. You may be aware there are certain things, like voices, you can’t hear, but overall, the world of sound is ‘normal’ to you. When a hearing aid or aids are fitted you will have a noticeable improvement in the areas you may have had a problem with, such as speech intelligibility, hearing the doorbell etc. However, there will be many other sounds that you are now hearing which you will not remember being so aware of, such as a newspaper rustling, tapping of a pen when you are writing, etc.
We learn in very early life how to accept and reject different sounds, to process them according to their importance. When a hearing aid is fitted the brain needs to re learn this skill and that takes time. To enable the best possible adjustment, it is important to start to use the hearing aid or aids very gradually, starting at home for an hour or so a day and gradually increasing that period of use. Once you have acclimatised at home you can begin to use the hearing aid or aids out and about but being mindful that there will be other sounds to re learn in any new environment. This is called the habituation process and regardless of the hearing aid you have been fitted with you will have to go through this process.
It is also very important to understand and remember that a hearing aid is just that, an aid. They are advancing all the time as technology improves and are designed to support your ability to hear, however it is an artificial sound, and it will never replace natural hearing. So, try to be realistic in what the hearing aid will achieve for you. This can be discussed further with your audiologist.