According to Australian Hearing from the Department of Human Services, more than three million Australians are experiencing hearing loss.
Thankfully, hearing technology has come a long way. Today, hearing aids are much smaller, often difficult to detect and come in many varieties to suit the level of hearing difficulty.
Spare a thought for those living 100 years ago, when hearing aids did not use electricity and were barely portable. Most hearing aids of yesteryear came in the form of large metal trumpets or horns that were awkwardly attached to the head by a harness. Even 30 years ago, the body-worn hearing aids came looked a little like a large transistor radio device.
Today, digital hearing aids are lightweight, discrete, can be adjusted for different environments and can amplify sound without distortion.
Hearing aids are now broadly categorised into the following five types.
The devices come in many 'shell' shapes, can be hard or malleable, customised to an individual's audiogram and programmed to adapt to the audiological environment automatically to suit different situations including home, office and street environments.
We've come a long way from ear trumpets, but hearing aid technology is continuing to evolve with time.
If you haven't had a audiogram in the past year, contact your health and safety advisor to arrange one.
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