Hello and welcome to Hearing TV. My name is Merren Davies.
In recent episodes we have been talking about Styles of Hearing Aids. But what if something has happened to your ear and hearing aids are of no help?
Before we look further into this, let’s have a look at the human ear and understand how it works.
Sounds around us reach our ears by a relay of air molecule vibrations. These vibrations reach our eardrum, which transmit the VIBRATION of sound through to the INNER EAR via the interconnection of the 3 smallest bones in the body: the malleus, the incus and the stapes.
This mechanical vibration causes the fluid inside the inner ear to move, and this movement causes sensory cells inside the inner ear to TRANSDUCE the mechanical Vibration into an Electrical signal, which is picked up by our Hearing Nerve and transmitted up to the BRAIN – where the true ‘HEARING” happens.
People with a hearing loss can either have a problem with the Mechanical part of the ear – or the Electrical part of the ear – or both!
These are usually overcome by hearing aids, which can increase the volume of the sound to overcome the hearing loss.
In our next episode we will start looking at what can be done if hearing aids are no longer enough to overcome the hearing loss.
Stay tuned to Hearing TV to hear about implantable hearing devices.