How are hearing aids customized?

Hearing aids can be customised in two different ways.

1) Customised to fit comfortably in your ear

As all ears are unique most hearing aids need to have an element of customisation.  To customise a hearing aid to fit your ear we take a silicon impresson of the ear.  This is carried out by filling the ear canal and outer ear with silicon material that once in the ear will harden within a matter of minutes and then removed and sent to be manufactured into a mould or an in-the-ear hearing aid.  This manufacturers use the mould to create an acrylic shell, which should fit comfortably in your ear.

If you are having an in-the-ear hearing aid the shell will be fitted with the appropriate electrical components, including the digital microchip (the brain of the hearing aid), microphone, speaker unit etc.  All these components are wired together and holes are drilled in the shell for the microphone and receiver to allow sounds in and out.  When the hearing aid is finished, it is polished smooth and then analyzed to make sure that it fits the patient’s hearing prescription.

2) Customised to suit your hearing requirement

Digital hearing aids arrive at our offices as more or less a “blank canvas”.  On recipet of the new hearing aids we connect them to the computer and input all the audiological data.  This information, together with personal details of the patient, such as age and lifestyle are pulled together and the hearing aid is customised to suit the patient’s needs.   The hearing is then fitted and real time alterations are made according to the patients comments.  As the aids are completely programmable they can be altered to suit increasing need should hearing loss develop.