Up to 33% of Americans over the age of 65 have hearing loss. That number increases to 50% for adults over 75. For many, hearing aids are the primary treatment option for their hearing loss.
If you wear hearing aids, you’re likely keen to enhance your listening experience. To ensure that you’re able to hear your best, you’ve probably tried different types of hearing aids. Working with your hearing healthcare specialist, you have hopefully decided on a hearing aid device that fits your lifestyle.
During the process, you may have asked your hearing healthcare specialist “Why can’t I wear one hearing aid?” Today, we’re going to explore this idea!
“Why Can’t I Wear One Hearing Aid?”
This is a surprisingly common question in the hearing healthcare community. In theory, you could choose to only wear one hearing aid. However, there are a number of reasons that you should wear two hearing aids.
Here’s a scenario to consider…
Do you wear glasses? Have you ever asked your optician to give you a monocle, instead of a pair of glasses? The chances are that no, you have not! Why would you only correct your vision in one eye?
Hearing aids are similar. There are multiple benefits to wearing two hearing aid devices. We’re going to explore 3 of these benefits.
Hearing Environment
Wouldn’t it be great if every time you needed to hear something, you were in a quiet room? Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Our lives are often noisy! Hearing in a noisy environment can be challenging. Add in hearing loss, and it can be difficult to hear adequately in noisy environments.
In noisy environments, our ears work best as a team. This is down to the mechanics of how our ears actually work. Put simply, our ability to hear is thanks to our brains.
In a noisy environment, your brain can help focus on sounds that we need to pay attention to. Using both ears, it can help filter out background noise and instead focus on speech. Ensuring optimal hearing in both ears helps improve your hearing ability, in all listening environments.
Sound Direction
Your ears play an important role in allowing us to localize the directions of sounds. It’s easy to see this in action. Close your eyes, and ask a friend or family member to speak from somewhere behind you. Are you able to tell which side of the room they are on?
Working in conjunction, your ears (actually, your brain) can localize the source of a sound. When only one ear is hearing correctly, it can make localizing the direction of sound very challenging.
Communication
There is evidence that hearing with both ears improves our ability to communicate. Using both ears, also improves our ability to understand speech. This can enhance your listening experience in a variety of different hearing environments.
Our ears, like our eyes, are intended to work together. Both ears are involved in our hearing ability. This is known as binaural hearing. When our ears are working together, our listening experience is significantly enhanced.
The purpose of a hearing aid is to help your listening experience if you have hearing loss. You may find that your hearing loss is worse in one ear than another. Please don’t be tempted to only wear one hearing aid. The benefits of wearing both are clear to see!
Trust the Professionals at Hearing Balance & Speech Center
If you’d like to discuss hearing aid further, the hearing healthcare specialists at Hearing, Balance & Speech Center are here to help. If you’d like to book an appointment, please call us today on 203-774-5642 or request an appointment online.