With all of the fascinating technology being developed on a near-daily basis, hearing aids seem – and have become – thoroughly modern devices. However, the history of hearing aids stretches back several decades, to a brilliant physicist and author named Harvey Fletcher.

Fletcher’s prototypical hearing aids were worn on the body, and consisted of an ear mold connected to a case about the size of a deck of playing cards. This case was connected to the mold via a loop, and attached to the belt or pocket of the wearer. Because of their great size, they were capable of great feats of amplification; through their bulkiness and unwieldiness they have been replaced  by “behind the ear” hearing aids. Still, for the time, they represented a watershed moment in hearing amplification.

Behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids are tubes that wrap, fittingly enough, behind the ear of the hearing loss sufferer. They provide sound through air conduction through this length of tubing. Because they keep the ear open, they allow the user to retain use of whatever hearing they have left, and are therefore appropriate for those with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

Hearing  aid technology progressed further with the development of In-The-Ear (ITE) hearing aids. These devices go directly into the ear canal. Further advancements have created digital hearing aids that are programmable and can come with a number of exciting and helpful accessories.

Even less obtrusive in every-day conversation are implantable hearing aids. These aids can be implanted directly into the bone of people who suffer from hearing loss, in a procedure that can be recovered from in mere hours. Extended-wear hearing aids have also been introduced, allowing hearing loss sufferers to hear clearly on a daily basis without worrying about taking an aid in or out frequently.

The history of hearing aids is fascinating, and ever changing. The sheer amount of accumulated knowledge that has resulted in the modern class of hearing loss technology is astounding.

But can hearing aids help save the economy?

That’s what a UF professor whose work helped develop the project is saying.  Alice Holmes, a professor in UF’s Department of Communicative Disorders at the College of Public Health and Health Professions, has worked with other UF researchers to pioneer a new type of hearing aid.

This hearing aid is programmed not to the tonal beeps of past hearing aids, but rather to be responsive to speech sounds such as “ata” and “aba.”

It is Holmes’ contention that many people, especially in an older state like Florida, are prematurely forced out of the workforce by poor hearing. A scant 20 percent of the 31 million Americans with hearing loss that could be benefited by the use of an aid actually take advantage of hearing aid technology, some no doubt frustrated by ill-fitting or unhelpful hearing aids.

Furthermore, by allowing hearing aids to be programmed more quickly and efficiently, the new technology hopes not only provide a lifestyle benefit to the patients, but an economic boon to the audiology clinics. Hearing loss ranks second to only arthritis as a permanent disability in the older community, Holmes says.

As hearing aid technology gets better, and better, we continue to reap benefits. This additional potential boost to the economy is a welcome one.

Hearing aids are like other medical products used to assist anyone who has a disability. To make a comparison,  you don’t always need a prescription from a doctor to buy your medicine and sometimes can get what your looking for over the counter–this is now happening in the world of hearing aids.

The question we need to really ask ourselves as well as other hearing professionals is, it a good idea to buy a hearing aid without having it properly  made to one’s degree of hearing loss? Anyone who gets a hearing aid or is thinking of getting one should first see an audiologist to see what the best option would be.

The audiologist will first test your hearing to see if there is any hearing loss–and how strong it has become. If necessary, the audiologist will then recommend whether or not you should get a hearing aid. This is extremely important. If someone buys a hearing aid without seeing an audiologist beforehand, one of two outcomes will result–both of which are negative and will only hurt the patient in need.

The first possible outcome is that the hearing aid would be too weak. As a result, it would  not only be a waste of your money, but the patient’s  hearing would not improve as a result. The second outcome is that could be too strong of a hearing aid. This would be disastrous. If it is too powerful it would cause noise induced hearing loss. This hearing loss is irreversible and will never be restored to what it once was.

An audiologist suggesting a custom hearing aid benefits the patient and at time hearing loss could be fixed without the use of a hearing aid depending on the type of hearing loss.

So getting a custom hearing aids with assistance from an audiologist is the best practice. Every individual has different levels of hearing loss. When it comes to hearing aids, see an audiologist to get help with your hearing problems, don’t take the cheap way out and damage it.

1) It receives the sounds which it receives from the microphone in the hearing aid, which then turns into binary code.

2) The binary code is deciphered and determines what the sounds are.

3) Once this is complete, it then amplifies the sounds accordingly as to not be too loud or too low.

One question people often ask is about feedback–how strong is it? The digital hearing aid actually minimizes the feedback received through a noise distinction process. Sound recognition is also a feature that has helped make the digital hearing aid the dominant hearing aid of the last five years. Before, analog hearing aids just amplified all the sounds and would cause much higher feedback noises. On the contrary, digital hearing aids actually adjust to distinguish different sounds so while it does have some feedback, it’s  minimal.

Digital hearing aids have setting which the user can program–ideal for traveling since it can more easily adjust to the environment and new surroundings. It is no wonder why digital hearing aids are dominating the market–combating hearing loss, but that doesn’t mean analog hearing aids are gone. Realistically, they are more difficult to find and less patients use them–within a few years they will be completely off the markets.

But did you know now that it can be a hearing aid as well?

SoundAMP recently released a hearing aid application for the iPhone. The way it works is simple–it uses the built-in microphone to amplify sound like any other hearing aid. You choose the level, as well as which tones to jack up the most (useful for isolating a particular voice, or eliminating a constant background noise). The app also stores the last 30 seconds of audio in a temporary cache, in case you missed anything the first time around. to attain the sound and then amplifies it accordingly to improve the hearing.  When looking at this hearing aid app, it made me wonder; how is it similar to the typical hearing aids on the market and does it make a good substitute for an actual hearing aid?

• The digital hearing aid in some ways does work similar to the hearing application. It too can adjust volume of various sounds to properly amplify the sounds. While the digital aid does do this automatically, the hearing application does this manually.

• The digital hearing aid does not have a recording cache that can let you listen to what was said before if anything should be missed, the digital hearing aid can’t do this.

• The digital hearing aids have preprogrammable settings for common environments and the hearing app does not.

• Using a neck loop, digital hearing aids can be plugged directly into the source of the sound if it has a standard input jack, the iPhone does not have this ability.

• Digital hearing aids (and almost all aids out there today) are custom designed to suit the individual using it. The application is a general purpose which may not help everyone who needs assistance hearing.

So the SoundAMP is a great application, but it can never replace a real hearing aid. It however, can never replace the real hearing aid. If one really needs one, they should first consult the audiologist to see what their best options are.