Should You Wear Hearing Aids All the Time? – Audiology Associates

If you have hearing aids, you may wonder how often you need to wear them to get the most benefit.
To keep both your hearing and brain sharp, you should wear your hearing aids all day. The only time you should remove your hearing aids is for sleeping and activities like showering or swimming since most hearing aids are not waterproof.
If you’re new to hearing aids, this can be challenging at first. Your hearing care provider may recommend wearing them for a few hours each day, at least initially. Even when at home alone, it’s useful to hear everything to keep your brain sharp. By doing so, you’ll train your brain to filter out useless noise (the fridge humming) and detect useful sounds (the faucet leaking)!
“The brain isn’t good at trying to listen in two ways—through hearing loss and through the amplification system. The ear is a doorway to the brain, it doesn’t make sense to have it partially closed part of the day,” explained Catherine Palmer, president of the American Academy of Audiology, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and director of audiology for its health system.
When you take out your hearing aids for prolonged periods, you may feel that it’s harder to hear than it used to be. The difference is the amount of energy your brain puts into hearing. You’ve adapted to a hearing-aid world and your brain doesn’t work as hard at compensating for your hearing loss as it did before.
Most people with hearing loss struggle to hear sounds at different frequencies, usually high ones. If you don’t treat your hearing loss your brain may forget how to hear certain words and sounds. This is known as auditory deprivation.
Imagine a baby who doesn’t have the ability to hear. “If hearing and speech and language are the parents’ goal, we need to get stimulation to the auditory nerve quickly because neural synapses are developing,” explains Dr. Palmer.
“This is an issue for adults as well. We don’t want the auditory system to be deprived of sound because over time that can change auditory processing abilities,” she said.
Sporadic use of hearing aids may lead to a similar type of deprivation. If you take them off for any length of time during the day, your brain will adjust to the new conditions and you’ll either use more effort to hear or withdraw from communication. Both can negatively affect your ability to process certain sounds.
If you’re experiencing hearing problems or other ear-related issues, be sure to call Audiology Associates at 661-284-1900. Kevin Bolder, Au.D and John Davis, Au.D are two of the best in Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valley. Visit our website at www.AudiologyAssociates.net or stop by our office located at 25425 Orchard Village Road, Ste 220, Santa Clarita, CA 91355.
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