Management for hearing Impairment
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Hearing aids, to the rescue!
Hearing aids are devices that amplify sounds to make it audible for the hearing impaired. They are simple electronic devices with a microphone, an amplifier and a speaker. Most of the hearing aids available today are digital. Clinically, this essentially means that the hearing aids can be programmed very specifically to an individual hearing loss.
BAHA
A Bone-anchored hearing aid is a type of hearing aid based on bone conduction. It is primarily suited to people who have conductive hearing losses, unilateral hearing loss and people with mixed hearing losses who cannot otherwise wear 'in the ear' or 'behind the ear' hearing aids such as patients with atretic or microtic ears. Here sounds are routed directly to the inner ear via bone vibrations. This device amplifies the sound and converts it into vibrations which are then passed on to the ''abutment'' or screw surgically fixed on the patient's mastoid bone/skull.
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Cochlear implant (CI)
When an individual's hearing loss is so severe/profound that he/she receives minimal benefit from even the most powerful hearing aids as well, CI are one of the options. The cochlear implant stimulates the nerve directly through electrodes inserted in the shell shaped cochlea, bypassing the hair cells. It consists of a microphone that sits behind the ear/ body worn and the signals are converted into electrical pulses, travel across the skull and is transferred to the electrodes in the cochlea which finally stimulate the auditory nerve.
Assistive listening systems
In a large room, a person with a hearing problem may have trouble understanding speech even when using the most powerful hearing aid. Background noise and vibration can compound hearing problems and interfere with a hearing aid’s ability to pick up specific sound. Because of this, large public meeting rooms, concert halls, auditoriums and churches are sometimes equipped with one of a number of different alternative listening device systems that help hard-of-hearing people. These include AM systems,
FM systems, infrared systems and Audio Loop Systems.
