The best choice of hearing aids is selected for you based on our advanced hearing evaluation at AVICO. Our outstanding staff is always available to make sure that your hearing aids meet all your individual needs.
If you have hearing loss in both ears, then you are most likely a candidate for two hearing aids, which is called binaural hearing aid fitting. Two hearing aids should be used, to make sure that your hearing quality is better, clearer, more natural, and more comfortable. Our audiologists can best determine if you are a candidate for two hearing aids or not. Although we leave the final decision to our patients, we make sure that our patients understand the importance of binaural fitting and the huge benefits they get from using two hearing aids. At AVICO we can provide you with the chance to experience binaural hearing aid amplification in real life situations before deciding to use one or two hearing aids.
Using one hearing aid is very helpful for hearing impaired patient. However, the hearing will not be as natural as hearing equally from both sides. When you listen to music via headphones, you use both sides of the headphone to get the smoothest, sharpest, and most natural sound quality and enjoy the music. You can try this by comparing the sound in one side of the headphone versus in two sides of the headphone on your personal listening device or cell phone. The same can be assumed about hearing aids. Using bilateral hearing aids increases the hearing range around you from around 180° using one ear to 360°using both ears. Increasing the range will provide you with a better sense of balanced hearing and improved the three-dimensional quality of the sound.
The use of two hearing aids improves the way your brain processes and understands speech sounds and human voices. This means your brain conducts selective hearing by focusing on the conversation you want to hear and ignoring to some extent the background noise. Research showed that people wearing two hearing aids understand speech and conversation significantly better than people wearing one hearing aid, especially in noisy environments.
Localization allows you to identify the direction where someone is speaking to you in a social gathering for example. Also, localization helps you determine from where traffic is coming, or where your children or grandchildren are playing. No matter how advanced the technology is, improving localization always needs binaural hearing. Almost in every situation, your ability to detect the direction of the sound source and hearing from further distances will improve when you use two hearing aids.
Less volume is required generally when using bilateral hearing aids. The need for less amplification results in less distortion and better quality of amplified sound. This will make the sound more distinguishable and more comfortable. Moreover, sound distinction in the central auditory nervous system improves dramatically with binaural hearing.
Wearing two hearing aids minimizes the effect of auditory neural deprivation. In other words, research showed that using one hearing aid only, causes the other (unaided) ear to gradually lose its ability to hear and understand speech.
Listening with one ear is tiring and stressful in many situations, especially in noisy environments and when you have to keep turning toward the person speaking. With bilateral hearing aids you will be able to discriminate speech in noise easily and effortlessly, and you will stop worrying about turning your good ear toward the sound source, and you will be able to enjoy the conversation easily.
Tinnitus is a buzzing, ringing, or whistling sound heard in the ears especially when it is quite. Tinnitus is associated with many types of hearing loss. According to the recent reports, 50% of people with bilateral hearing aids showed improvement regarding the tinnitus sensation in their ears. If a person with tinnitus wears one hearing aid only, then ringing in the other ear will remain perceived.
Previous research including more than 5,000 patients with bilateral hearing loss demonstrated that patients who used binaural hearing aid fitting were much more satisfied than patients who used one hearing aid only. It is not a coincidence that we were created with two eyes and two ears. We need to use both eyes to see clearly, and we need both ears to hear clearly. Here at AVICO, we will help you in achieving all the advantages of using two hearing aids, and we will provide you with the best sound quality that exceeds your expectations.