Hearing Aids and Personal Sound Amplifiers: Know the Difference You’ve likely seen them advertised on television—small electronic sound amplifiers that allow users to enjoy nighttime TV without disturbing sleepers, or to hear their toddlers from many yards away. While these personal sound amplifiers may help people hear things that are at low volume or at a distance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to ensure that consumers don’t mistake them—or use them as substitutes—for approved hearing aids. “Hearing aids and personal sound amplification products (PSAPS) can both improve our ability to hear the sound,” says Eric Mann, M.D.,...

Analog versus Digital Hearing Aids Analog hearing aids have been available for many years.  They have a microphone to collect sound and convert the sound into electrical energy, an amplifier to increase the strength of the electrical energy, and a receiver or speaker to convert the electrical energy to an acoustic sound.  Analog hearing aids may help amplify soft sounds without over-amplifying loud sounds through a process called automatic gain control (AGC).  However, analog hearing aids do not typically have other advanced features. Digital hearing aids are more complex. With digital hearing aids, a microphone picks up sound, which is then converted into digital signals. The...

Daily Care: Throughout the day, hearing aids are exposed to moisture through perspiration and the environment. Although your hearing aids have been treated for moisture protection, accumulation of moisture is harmful to the electronics of the hearing aids. It is important to reverse the daily effects of moisture by storing the hearing aids in a dry environment overnight. Your audiologist may provide an electronic dryer, called a Dry and Store. This is a special unit that combats the harmful effects of moisture. The Dry and Store is a unit that contains two compartments inside.  One compartment holds a disposable desiccant...