Hearing aids help, but ears will be ears

People who use hearing aids, on average, live with hearing loss for seven years before resigning themselves, usually around age 70, to using a device, according to the Hearing Loss Association of America. 8220;You are in a position where you8217;ve been struggling, and you get tired of asking people to repeat themselves,8221; McKenna said.

Most people with hearing loss eventually acknowledge that 8220;the standard becomes hearing better than you heard before,8221; said Eduardo Bravo, an audiologist with Audio Help Associates in Manhattan.

8220;The noise exposure just builds up, and with baby boomers it8217;s been a lifetime of amplified music,8221; said John M Burkey, director of audiology at the Lippy Group for Ear Nose and Throat, in Warren, Ohio. Most of these boomers are still in the work force and can8217;t afford not to hear.

8220;I had to have the best hearing I could because I wanted to remain a psychologist,8221; said Teresa Cochran of Alexandria, who has a cochlear implant in one ear but depends on a hearing aid in the other to augment her range of hearing. 8220;I see patients six hours a day during weekdays, and I need to be alert to what they say.8221;

Why do hearing aids fall short of restoring hearing to the equivalent of 20/20 vision? Because there is no cure for sensorineural hearing loss, by far the most common problem. It is caused by degeneration of the nerve cells, known as hair cells, that line the cochlea, the inner ear structure that looks like a snail.

The hair cells transmit signals received from the bones in the middle ear to the auditory nerve, which sends them to the brain. Aging and exposure to noise cause hair cells to die off, starting with those that transmit high-frequency sounds like 8220;s8221; and 8220;t.8221;

With the ear, the problem is the nerve itself. But hearing aids can do a lot, especially for those with mild to moderate high-frequency loss, a group that encompasses most people who are hard of hearing.

Digital technology allows fine-tuning to address the wearer8217;s specific loss rather than amplifying sounds indiscriminately, a common complaint about older hearing aids.

Open-fit hearing aids, tucked discreetly behind the ear with an almost invisible plastic tube going into the canal, offer a more natural sound by allowing low-frequency sounds to penetrate the ear while amplifying the high-frequency ones. A telecoil, a small device that can be embedded in the hearing aid to eliminate feedback, can improve hearing on the telephone.

And the entire package can be encased in colours or leopard-skin plastic for the fashion-forward.