Though choosing the right hearing aids for your specific hearing health condition is a decision you ultimately need to make with your healthcare professional, it's important you first do a bit of research into your options.
Hearing aids aren't inexpensive and one person's perfect style can be very different than another person's ideal style. Choosing the right style of hearing aid to meet your needs will make getting used to wearing them a lot easier and you will ultimately be much happier with your purchase.
The Two Different Types of Hearing Aids
There are two main types of hearing aids on the market today:
- behind the ear (BTE)
- in the ear (ITE)
As their names imply, BTE hearing aids sit behind your ear while ITE hearing aids sit inside of your ear. Below is a bit of information about each style:
Behind the Ear Hearing Aid Styles
When you think of behind the ear hearing aids, you likely envision the giant hearing aids your grandparents used to wear. They were big, made a lot of obnoxious noises, and the wearers never seemed to really like them very much.
Thankfully, there have been a lot of advancements in hearing aid technology in the last couple of decades! Today's behind the ear hearing aids come in different sizes from micro to large. The smaller styles have smaller batteries and fewer manual controls, while the larger have longer battery life and more controls.
BTE hearing aids have their main battery compartment and controls on the part that goes behind your ear. This piece has a tube that goes into your inner ear canal to deliver sound.
BTE hearing aids are available in different skin tone colors as well as designer colors and patterns.
In the Ear Hearing Aid Styles
The smallest ITE hearing aid styles are those that go completely in the ear canal or are invisible in the ear canal. These options, known as CIC and IIC, are great for people who don't want their hearing aids to be seen. In addition, these are good options for people with only a mild hearing loss. However, these styles have very small batteries and require good manual dexterity.
If you want a hearing aid with longer battery life or don't have the patience to deal with the very small IIC and CIC styles, then an in-the-canal style is worth investigating. Known as ITC hearing aids, this style is better for people with a more profound hearing loss. This style also has some external controls you can use to modify how they are working in a variety of different situations.
Contact a clinic, like Wakefield Hearing Center, for more help.
