Good Hearing Aid Means Belonging

The hearing is one of our six senses. An important sense that we need to be very careful with, just like on our eyes. But we are not always that way. Too often we expose our sensitive ears to too much noise, consciously and unconsciously. This can cause hearing damage and once you have it, it will bother you for the rest of your life. Prevention is, therefore, the only option because there is no cure. Good hearing is part of our daily lives. If you do not hear well, it limits your social functioning. Good hearing is essential to belong. People with hearing problems often suffer psychologically as well. It can make them depressed. There are even people who commit suicide just to get rid of that ringing or another annoying ringing in their ears. Not being able to hear well limits children in their further development. Adults who hear less well are limited in their participation in social intercourse. It can help the elderly in social isolation. More than enough reasons to be careful with your ears.

The Audiologist

Many people who start hearing less because of their age can be helped with a Bluetooth hearing aid. Around 15% of people with a hearing problem are referred to the hearing care professional, who is an expert in the field of hearing, language and speech. He offers research, advice, and treatment to children who have problems with their hearing, language or speech development and to adults with more severe hearing problems. Audiological centers help their clients to participate as well as possible in society. The audiologist examines which treatment and tools deliver the best results, aimed at living as actively and independently as possible with a hearing problem, both at home and at work. Children pay extra attention to functioning at school and in pre-school and after-school care.

Hearing Problems

The most common hearing problems are hearing impairment and tinnitus. The first has purely physical causes, as a result of a birth defect, illness, an accident or old age. Tinnitus is partly psychological in nature, although the cause is a physical one (damage to the hearing system) and often the result of too long exposure to too much noise. If you have tinnitus, you perceive a certain sound continuously or intermittently (whistling, whirring, hum, a buzzing sound, sometimes several sounds at the same time) without there being a demonstrable sound source in your environment. Tinnitus can become so irritating that it limits your daily functioning. You may have trouble concentrating and sleeping, or getting anxious, gloomy or tired. Nowadays especially the youth have to be careful. If that beep doesn't go away after a night out, tinnitus is usually present. A growing group is suffering from it and needs to learn how to deal with it properly. Then there is a group of people with a different sound experience. Those people hear sounds distorted or too loud, or hear something different on the left than on the right. Another, very small group seems to be hard of hearing but has a psychogenic blockage that makes them hard to hear. If the psychological reason for the blockage is removed, the hearing problem usually also disappears.

Hearing is Being Able to Communicate

Donné Pans is a clinical physicist-audiologist at Adelante audiology & communication in Hoensbroek. "Being able to hear well is very important for our functioning," he explains. “The most important function of our hearing is to perceive sound and transmit it to our brains. These locate the sound and distinguish it from other sounds. Of voice sounds, for example, that we have learned to recognize. Our brain gives meaning to sound. This allows you to distinguish a voice from, for example, traffic noise and you know who the voice belongs to, or not. Those who hear less well, are less able to distinguish and recognize sounds and sounds. This causes problems, such as being able to understand well in groups and language development problems in children. By hearing, you can learn to speak, develop your language and learn to understand language.

Artificial Balance Organ

For people with hearing problems that cause an equilibrium disorder, the development of an artificial balance organ by Prof. Herman Kingma of the Maastricht University Medical Center may offer a solution in the future. Kingma is currently working on fine-tuning his invention, which could be a blessing to people who are no longer working with this organ.

The Eye also Wants Something When it Comes to the Ear

The technology of hearing aids - previously clumsy and ugly things - has taken off. The current ones are 'design' and hardly stand out anymore. Modern hearing aids are small computers with a chip that calculates sound. Depending on your healthcare policy and the hearing care professional, you already have a hearing aid with a personal contribution of a few tens. But note: cheap can be at the expense of attention to your hearing problem. It is therefore worth considering first having your hearing properly measured by the throat, nose and ear doctor (ENT) or the audiologist, who also advise which hearing aid best fits your hearing problem.