Open fit Hearing Aids – do they solve all the problems?
The biggest complaint from the hearing impaired is that the normal Hearing Aid gives a sensation of the ear being plugged up – occlusions.
What happens is that because the whole ear channel is closed the lower frequency sounds do not escape from the ear. Sounds like chewing your food can be amplified causing problems for users with good low frequency response.
Open Fit Hearing Aids have been around for some considerable time. The older types are `Behind the Ear` with a reasonably thick tube transferring the sound to the outer ear but not directly into the ear channel. Therefore there is some loss of sound reaching the eardrum.
The modern Open Fit Hearing Aid solves this problem by allowing the tube carrying the sound to be placed in the ear channel without completely blocking it. They are able to do this by not having an ear mould that completely fills the ear channel but having holes cut into it allowing the free passage of air. This overcomes the plugged up effect of other Hearing Aids.
Response to high frequencies is much improved therefore allowing speech recognition to be greater. Cosmetically they are much better as they are smaller and the connecting transparent tube is almost invisible.
The cost of fitting is reduced as individual ear moulds do not have to be made and fitted. The Open Fit Hearing Aid is usually more expensive but if they can be afforded it is well worth the expense as they can give greatly improved hearing.
Another benefit of the Hearing Open Fit Hearing Aids is that they can be fitted almost immediately. They do not require the time consuming process of making custom ear moulds. There are no impressions to be made, thereby cutting downs the waiting time before you receive your Aids. Open Fit Hearing Aids have also been made possible by overcoming the problem of feedback. Feedback is produced when sounds within the ear are fed back to the microphone in the Hearing Aid causing a very loud whistle. By building in circuits which cancel feedback allows the Hearing Aid mould to be designed as Open Fit.
The main beneficiaries of Open Fit Hearing Aids are those people who have good hearing in the low frequency tones and poor hearing in higher frequencies tones, which is the most common hearing loss.
The latest Open Fit Behind the Ear Hearing Aids are very much smaller and fit very neatly behind the ear with a very thin transparent tube connecting it to an Open Fit ear mould within the ear channel. This makes the wearing of a Hearing Aid much more acceptable as it is hardly visible
