Bone Conduction Hearing Aids and Why Air Conducting Types Can Be Unsuitable

Hearing Loss from Best Hearing Aids

Bone conduction hearing aids can help specific sorts of hearing loss, and are often of help in the case of children. Others who also benefit particularly from this kind of hearing aid are people who have non-permanent hearing loss.

This should be caused by physical damage, blockage, infection or eczema. Conventional hearing aids take sounds from outside the ear, and then amplify this sound and play it back to the inner ear. There are newly developed hearing aids called bone conduction hearing aids, these work far differently to the traditional hearing aids.

Traditional external hearing aids can be generally classified separately into air conduction hearing aids and bone conduction hearing aids.

Air conduction hearing aids require the utilization of ear molds, that may be difficult in patients with chronic middle ear and ear canal infections, atresia of the outer canal, or an ear canal which cannot provide a home to an ear mold.

As a result a new sort of hearing aid has been designed for these people namely the bone conduction hearing aid, and these work with an oscillator. It works with the sounds from the exterior of the ear and vibrates onto the bone of the head.

This is a signal that is heard by the inner ear. There’s big difference between Bone Conduction Hearing Aids and other models available today on the market. Both take the sound from outside the ear. However, a conventional model amplifies the sound inside the middle ear, in the ear mould. The inner ear then receives the sounds from the ear mildew. The Bone Conductor Hearing aid is different.

It sends the signal picked up outside the ear, direct to the oscillator. The oscillator vibrates against the skull that the inner ear recognizes as sound. although the Bone Conduction Hearing help is not as efficient as the other hearing aids available, but it is great for those whose condition is less than suitable for the regular kind of aid.

In these patients, bone conduction hearing aids could be an alternative. External bone conduction hearing aids function by broadcasting sound waves thru the bone to the ossicles of the middle ear. The external devices must be closely applied to the temporal bone, with either a steel spring ott of the head or with the use of a spring-loaded arm on a couple of spectacles.

In these patients, a bone-anchored device found near the deaf ear works as a transcranial contralateral routing of signal ( CROS ) to broadcast sound to the contralateral functional cochlea via bone conduction.

Headbands made from hard materials for bone conduction hearing aids have caused discomfort problems. There are some options for bone conduction headbands for bone conduction hearing aids. If cosmetics are the main problem, some parents have stitched the headband into a favourite hat ( that often helps with comfort too ).

Girls can use butterfly clips both to embellish and to anchor the headband in their hair. Some kids use sports headbands. Make a slit on the inside only of one side and run the wire through the headband to a matching slit on the opposite side, just above the ear.

Also remember the oscillator must directly contact the skin and must be attached in such a manner that nothing comes between the oscillator and the skin. Frequently just the fit of the headband will achieve this but if not velcro should be attached to the back of the oscillator.


allabouthearingaids.com

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