Can Hearing Aids Help "Inner-Ear" Hearing losses?

It is a common misconception that inner-ear hearing losses can not be helped with amplification. Inner-ear hearing losses are due to deterioration in the hair cell structures that line the inner-ear organ known as the cochlea. Hair cell deterioration is most commonly associated with age or long term exposure to damaging levels of noise. 

One thing that separates inner-ear losses from middle-ear (or conductive) losses, is a phenomenon known as recruitment. What this means is that the hearing loss is not the same for different levels of sound. Patients with recruitment have a hearing loss for soft sounds, but less of a hearing loss for moderately loud sounds, and perhaps no hearing loss at all for loud sounds. These patients may even have a hyper-sensitivity to loud sounds, even though they have difficulty hearing softer sounds. 

Simply making sounds louder will not benefit patients with recruitment. However, with today’s hearing aid technologies, little on-board computers monitor the level of the sound coming in to the hearing aid, and then adjust the amount of amplification being applied to that sound automatically and constantly. Even syllable by syllable, these hearing aids can monitor and react to the loudness of the incoming sound, making sure that when amplification is required, it is delivered, and when it is not, it is automatically withheld.

To determine what type of hearing condition you might have, and whether today’s modern hearing technology could be helpful to you, it is important to seek the care and counsel of a degreed audiologist.

AuDNet, Inc. is a nationwide network of independent audiology providers. All AuDNet audiologists have earned advanced university degrees in audiology, and are fully trained to interpret case histories, carefully test and evaluate all aspects of the auditory system, advise physicians on hearing loss and balance etiologies, and treat hearing loss and balance conditions that are not amenable to medical or surgical intervention. 

The first consideration in seeking hearing care is the expertise and skill of the care giver. Through the AuDNet network of audiology providers, patients have an easy and effective way of insuring that they are receiving hearing care and treatment from qualified and highly trained audiologists.