Patients who have been diagnosed with hearing loss in Chelmsford or Nashua might think choosing a hearing aid is easy. Nothing could be further from the truth! There is a seemingly limitless selection available, with enough options and features to make your head spin. Adjusting to a new life with impaired hearing is difficult enough. Who needs the added stress of narrowing down fifty million options?
Factors to Consider When Shopping for Hearing Aids
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your choices, don’t worry: the process is a lot easier if you break down your search into easily manageable steps. When shopping for hearing aids, the following factors deserve consideration and will help you narrow down your selection quite nicely.
- Determine Your Hearing Needs. Your first order of business is to schedule a hearing test with your friendly neighborhood audiologist. No two hearing losses are identical, which means you can forget about finding a one-size-fits-all hearing aid. A trained hearing specialist will assess your hearing loss, measuring its severity and type in order to determine which parts of your ear are affected and what frequencies you are having trouble with.
- Functionality is Important. When it comes to hearing aids, think about both form and function. Advances in technology have brought a wide variety of optional features, but you aren’t likely to need them all. Determine which will be of most help to you in your daily life. Popular options include:
- What Kind of Lifestyle Do You Enjoy? Some people are quiet and solitary by nature, preferring intimate gatherings with one or two close friends or loved ones. Others can’t imagine a Friday night not spent painting the town red. You’ll need a hearing aid that is compatible with your activity level and powerful enough to keep up with your pace of life, whether you’re on the go or prefer staying home.
- What are Your Cosmetic Preferences? We’re not talking about blush and mascara. It’s important you wear your hearing aids on a daily basis, so you’ll want to choose a pair that you find visually appealing, whether that means hidden deep in your ear canal so nobody will notice or hooking over the back of your ear for easy operation.
- Dollars and cents. It won’t take you long to discover that hearing aids are a significant investment. Naturally you have a specific budget to work with but remember that the best hearing aids will enable you to reconnect with friends and loved ones and enjoy your favorite activities with less stress and fatigue. Money is an important factor but shouldn’t be the only factor.
We get it: buying hearing aids is a complicated process. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, your Chelmsford audiologist can help out with any questions you might have and may even let you try out different hearing aids before you commit to a purchase.