Misunderstanding words

Hearing loss is a major factor on your quality of life. One of the qualities is the understanding of your language or languages. Hearing loss can have a cognitive decline on your word understanding and the ability to understand speech. Hearing and understanding are two very different things.

We have all misunderstood part of a conversation and it can be quite funny. When you hear someone order nice water, maybe they wanted ice water. I am sure your Dad does not want grape ants for Christmas, but maybe grey pants would be more like what he might want. However, when you have a hearing loss, and this is your daily conversation always filling in or trying to interpret what is being said there is nothing funny about it.

When you have a hearing loss, and you are filling in the blanks and interpreting what words are you run a huge risk of loosing your language. Say you learned a foreign language in high school and did not speak it for many years. If someone speaks to you in the foreign language you might understand a word or two, but for the most part it would be more like it sounds familiar, but I do not understand.  If you do not use it, you lose it.

Hearing aids amplify sound they do not teach you a foreign language. Once you start losing your language then the hearing aids are only amplifying a foreign language. It is extremely critical to start wearing hearing aids before this happens.

We have a WRS (word recognition score) test that we run to verify what your understanding will be once we put the hearing aids on you. The higher the score the better understanding. If your score says 35% that would mean you are only going to understand 35% of what is being said. However, what you hear on the left side is processed on the right side of the brain and visa versa. One ear might not understand that word, but the other ear might pick it up.

At Accurate Hearing, we offer free hearing test. We want to ensure that every patient gets the right hearing aids to best meets their hearing loss and lifestyle needs. Simply request an appointment by calling 907-644-6004.