The Benefits of a Digital Hearing Aid - What to Look for When Purchasing a Digital Hearing Aid

What are the benefits of a digital hearing aid?

Digital hearing aids were first made available to the public in 1987,and digital hearing aids incorporating ‘DSP’ or ‘Digital signal processing’ became available just a little later. However these early digital hearing aid models were considered impractical due to their large size and high power consumption, resulting in short battery life.

Just a decade later though as with most modern technology things had greatly improved; digital hearing aids were now far less intrusive, and were available in a wide variety of styles from behind the ear ‘BTE’ units to ‘CIC’ units ‘completely-in-the-canal’ digital hearing aids.

But what are the advantages of a digital hearing aid over an analogue unit?

Digital hearing aids transform an analogue waveform into digital data, or number strings that can be processed by a computer processor. This in itself does not make a digital hearing aid superior to an analogue unit, but the advantages lie in the exploitation of this extra processing power within the digital hearing aid and utilising it to perform powerful features and functions. After all computers are capable of performing millions of calculations per second so why not apply that power to enhance the capabilities of the digital hearing aid.

One of the primary benefits of utilising the digital processing power of the digital hearing aid comes in the form of ‘Gain Processing’. By compressing and expanding specific audio channels the digital hearing aid is capable of reducing annoying low-level environmental or background noise, allowing the digital hearing aid to focus on primary sounds.

Combine this with the power of ‘DFR’ or ‘Digital feedback reduction’ and annoying background noises along with feedback from the microphone itself can be almost entirely eliminated. Digital feedback reduction utilises an inbuilt digital feedback cancellation system to monitor and reduce any internal feedback.

Digital hearing aids may also include ‘DSE’ technology or ‘Digital speech enhancements’, these digital processing systems are able to enhance and improve the clarity of speech segments.

So to sum up what are the main advantages of a digital hearing aid unit over an analogue hearing aid?

The benefits of digital hearing aids can be:

· Sound can be tailored to suit your own personal hearing.

· Improved comfort of listening within different environments.

· Gain processing makes for easier listening within noisy environments.

· Reduced to non-existent feedback from the digital hearing aid.

Additional beneficial features of a good digital hearing aid may include:

· Directional microphones - These microphones pick up sounds coming from in front of you better than coming from behind or beside you. This technology improves your ability to hear when you're in an environment with a lot of background noise.

· Telephone adapters – These make it easier to hear when talking on the telephone, eliminating the sounds from your environment and only picking up the sounds from the telephone.

· Bluetooth technology - New hearing aids can transmit sound from Bluetooth devices, such as Bluetooth cell phones.

Steps to take before purchasing your digital hearing aid:

· Ask about receiving a trial period, different types and brands of digital hearing aids work differently, trying out a few may help you decide which model works best for you.

· Make sure your digital hearing aid comes with a warranty, preferably for both parts and labour.

· Beware of misleading advertising – Digital hearing aids have come a long way but they are not a miracle cure.

Digital hearing aids are now available in a variety of styles to suit most budgets, and here in the UK are becoming increasingly available on the NHS.

Inside a digital hearing aid.