Recent studies on hearing aid use have made an astounding discovery. Although hearing loss treatment technology has improved significantly during the last decade, hearing instrument user satisfaction has not increased at the same rate.

If you wear hearing aids or are thinking of pursuing hearing loss rehabilitation, this may be the most important article you read all year! Keep reading to learn how to ensure a 5-star hearing aid experience for yourself with real-ear hearing aid measurements from our audiologist who strives to be the best hearing doctor in Lewiston and Rumford, ME.

What’s Wrong with Today’s Hearing Aids?

Reports published by Hearing Review and the Hearing Journal indicate that 34.25 million people in the United States suffer from some type of hearing loss. Of those people with significant hearing loss, 25% already own hearing instruments, and the majority of these owners experience moderate-to-severe hearing loss.

More than one million of these patients report that they are not satisfied with their hearing instruments and confess to leaving them in the drawer. If hearing instrument technology and design have improved, why are people not having an improved experience?

Key factors expressed for not using hearing instruments are:

• Not enough benefit
• Poor fit
• Unacceptable discomfort
• Unsatisfactory performance with background noise

How to Improve Your Hearing Aid Experience

Our goal at Central Maine Audiology is to help our patients achieve the best benefit possible from their hearing instruments. Studies have shown that if audiologists adjust your hearing aid solely based upon the manufacturer’s fitting algorithm, without real-ear testing, it may result in an inaccurate hearing prescription. Studies found that these initial-fit algorithms are often an inadequate amplification prescription, and research in England showed improvement in patient satisfaction when patients were fit with real-ear measurement.

What Are Real-Ear Measurements (REM)?

Real-ear measurements provide a method for objectively assessing the accuracy of how your hearing aid fits your ear. The reason for real-ear measurements is that individual ears are very different between patients, and occasionally one ear can even differ from the other ear on the same patient! Those differences have a major effect on the benefit a hearing instrument provides to the wearer.

The only way to truly account for those individual ear differences is for our audiologist to take a physical measurement of how your hearing aid is amplifying sound in the specific ear canal. Real-ear measurements make this possible, and that is why they are considered the gold standard method for achieving a proper hearing aid fit.

Schedule Your Assessment with the Best Hearing Doctor in Lewiston & Rumford, ME!

At Central Maine Audiology, we use the most advanced equipment on the market to measure Real-Ear Measurements (REM) on our patients who use hearing instruments.

Real-ear testing enables measurement of the sound delivered by a specific hearing aid in the ear canal of a specific individual. It is the most accurate procedure for measuring actual results. If you are interested in having your optimal hearing experience, schedule a complimentary appointment with our audiologist today!

The information provided in this article is not meant to be medical advice and is for educational purposes only. If you would like to learn more about this and other audiology-related topics, feel free to contact Central Maine Audiology by clicking here or by calling 207-782-1160.