Fitting tips

A few years back, two different research papers came out in Sweden that, when viewed next to each other, provide a really interesting story about the effect of hearing loss on human interactions.

In the mid 1990s, the staff from the National Acoustics Lab (NAL) in Australia developed one of the most effective and well-conceived questionnaires in our field: the COSI (the Client Oriented Scale of Improvement). Up to that point in time, the outcome questionnaires that we were using consisted of perhaps dozens of items that may or may not have been relevant to the individual hearing aid user.

It is quite common to state the importance of establishing realistic expectations for the newly fit patient. And that makes sense, but what are those expectations? Patients are looking for help. Professionals know that amplification can provide significant assistance, but no set of hearing aids is a perfect solution for sensorineural hearing loss.

How much time elapses between when an adult first notices hearing difficulties and when he/she visits a hearing professional for the first time? The answer to this question is well known amongst hearing care professionals: seven years. But is that the end of the story?

 The answer to both questions is “sooner than you might think.”

A few years ago, we took a look at these two questions with first time users. We were interested in understanding what happens during the first month of use for someone new to amplification.

Although hearing aids have gotten better and better as the years have gone by, it is still not unusual for a patient to follow up reporting continued struggles in complex, challenging environments. Where do you begin?