Hearing impaired: Why hearing aids are not the same as glasses

Although both are auxiliary devices designed to improve certain functions of the human body, their principles and goals are significantly different.

Vision problems can essentially be solved by changing the mechanical conduction pathway, while most hearing-impaired people who wear hearing aids face sensorineural problems, and hearing problems are far more complicated than vision problems.

Glasses are a device used to correct vision. Its main function is to correct optical errors so that the wearer can see more clearly. Glasses change the refraction path of light through lenses, which are specially designed to correct different vision problems. Once the glasses are fitted, people can often see a clear world immediately.

The principle of hearing aids

A hearing aid is a device that amplifies sound. It collects sound through a microphone, converts it into an electrical signal, then amplifies the signal through an amplifier, and finally plays the sound through a speaker (receiver).

The goal of a hearing aid is to help people with hearing impairment hear better. However, hearing aids cannot directly change the refraction path of light like glasses. It needs to adjust parameters according to each person's hearing condition to achieve the best effect.

For example, from the classification of hearing loss, it can be seen that the cause of hearing loss is very complex. Each hearing-impaired person has his or her own hearing loss curve, cause, listening preference and other personalized characteristics. The cause of conductive hearing loss is in the outer ear and middle ear. The damaged parts of sensorineural hearing loss patients are in the inner ear and auditory nerve. The inner ear hair cells cannot regenerate. If the hearing loss is caused by damage to the inner ear hair cells, hearing aids cannot "cure" it. The lesion of patients with mixed hearing loss combines the conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.

The hearing aids fitted by the audiologist for you do not simply amplify the sound, but accurately compensate according to the hearing curve of the hearing-impaired person to achieve the effect of being able to hear and hear clearly.

The difference between the principles and goals of hearing aids and glasses

In general, although glasses and hearing aids are both auxiliary devices designed to improve certain functions of the human body, their principles and goals are significantly different. Glasses correct vision by changing the refraction path of light, while hearing aids help the hearing-impaired hear clearly by amplifying sound.

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