What are the advantages of wearing a hearing aid with both ears than a single ear?

What are the advantages of wearing a hearing aid with both ears than a single ear?

From the perspective of contemporary audiology, except for patients with contraindications, hearing aids should be selected for the hearing impaired. In fact, the benefit of the binaural option is more than twice the effect of a single ear. Especially in a noisy environment, listening to both ears is clearer. Specifically, the benefits of binaural listening are as follows:

1Sound source localization: Both experiments and practice have proved that the use of hearing aids in both ears can increase the positioning ability of both ears, and a hearing aid can be worn alone. If the sound is from behind, its resolution is very poor. Because people determine the sound source based on the time and loudness difference achieved by comparing the sound between the ears. Orientation relies on the difference in intensity, time, phase and frequency between the ears.

2Balance: Listening to both ears, the auditory feeling is more balanced.

3, loudness plus effect: compared with single-ear listening, the loudness of both ears can be significantly increased8–10decibel.

4, binaural squelch effect: improve the noise ratio. When the hearing aid is used in both ears, the noise of the binaural hearing can be used to improve the patient’s selectivity to the listening signal and suppress the interference of the background noise.

5Prevention of auditory deprivation: If the two ears are hearing the same, one wears a hearing aid and the other does not wear it, the ear that does not wear the hearing aid has an auditory function that is prone to decline. Speech discrimination declines.

6To suppress tinnitus.

7To prevent unilateral hearing fatigue.

8Reduce the effect of blocking the ear.

9There are also many personal benefits, and each patient will have his own unique feelings.