What Happens During a Hearing Aid Fitting?

Hearing aid fittings might sound intimidating, but it’s one of the most important appointments to attend regarding your wellbeing. Sound is much more important to our collection of senses than you might think. Everything from hearing a glass drop to the floor and being able to detect the fire alarm in your home going off carries a lot of importance, and a successful hearing aid fitting is needed to help you regain control of your hearing ability. To give you some insight into the process, here’s what to expect during a hearing aid fitting.

A thorough hearing test

In order to test how much your hearing has degraded, your audiologist will first conduct a thorough hearing test to measure your range of hearing and the pitches that you can detect. You will be played sounds of varying frequencies and ranges until it becomes uncomfortable for you. Much like a test with an optometrist, it relies heavily on trial and error and your own input. This can sound intimidating, but as long as your audiologist is skilled and patient with you, this should not take longer than an hour. If you feel like your audiologist is rushing you or you don’t feel comfortable in their care, then you may want to look for a referral to a different audiologist or request someone else if possible. Remember that your hearing is an important part of your life and great care needs to be taken at your hearing aid fitting to ensure the best results.

Questions about your lifestyle

Every hearing aid needs to be calibrated to the user’s preferences at the hearing aid fitting. To help speed this up, you'll be asked a series of questions regarding your lifestyle and what you deem more important when it comes to sound. Hearing aids can be programmed to filter out certain noises or amplify things such as speech instead of background noises. Roughly two weeks after the initial fitting, you’ll be asked to return in order to give your opinion on the hearing aid and how it can be improved or changed for your needs.

Real ear measurements

To ensure that you’ll get the best results possible, your audiologist will verify the amplification by doing what’s called a real ear measurement. This lets the audiologist know how loud the sounds in your ear are by inserting a thin tube into your ear canal. This programming sequence is essential so that your hearing aids are correctly calibrated to your preferences.

Care and maintenance lesson

Lastly, your audiologist will teach you how to take care of your hearing aids. Tasks such as cleaning your hearing aids and storing them will seem daunting at first, but with practice and guidance they will become second nature and you’ll easily be able to maintain them without any outside help. You will often be given a small information leaflet that will help remind you of how to take care of your hearing aids should you forget.