Can Hearing Aids Cause Further Hearing Loss As It Makes Things Louder?

Time To Read: 2 minutes

This is a sensible questions, considering hearing aids make things louder in order to hear.

The answer could be yes, if they are not actually real hearing aids. Some amplifiers are sold as "hearing aids" and can indeed cause damage.

A proper hearing aid may also cause damage if incorrectly selected and fitted by someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

A hearing aid that is properly fitted by a qualified professional is highly unlikely to cause damage, particularly if the hearing professional puts in efforts to check your hearing periodically to pick up any unexpected changes.

Properly fitted hearing aids don’t just crank up the volume on everything, they increase it in those areas where you have a hearing loss. Think of them as your own personal graphic equaliser, increasing the volume where you need it most. But they also amplify different sound volumes using compression.

Digital hearing aids can boost soft sounds differently to speech level sounds and differently again the loud sounds. We aim to make soft sounds loud enough that quiet speech is audible, but not so loud that the faintest sound is loud enough to be distracting.

Similarly, moderate sound levels should be moderately loud and loud sounds loud but not uncomfortably so. Quality hearing aids have a maximum power output (MPO) which shuts off extremely loud sounds that exceed a set level.

Value Hearing Services’ trained audiologists set your hearing aids to this “Goldilocks zone” for optimal hearing. Our hearing aids will never harm your hearing, but they will provide you with optimal hearing and the many benefits that go with that.

That’s why it makes sense to get your hearing as professionally fitted face-to-face, while steering away from poor quality hearing aids.

Related Articles: