The hearing aid fitting rate of elderly patients in China is less than 5%, while the hearing aid fitting rate in developed European countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and France is as high as 40%. How did the hearing aid fitting rate in China increase from 5% to 40%? The importance of hearing loss should be identified and intervened early, and the intervention measures for hearing loss in the elderly should be popularized in advance.
With increasing age, the incidence of presbycusis is increasing. According to the survey, about 25%-40% of people over the age of 65, about 40%-66% over the age of 75, and 80% over the age of 85. However, the incidence of presbycusis in my country is high, but the intervention rate is extremely low.
In the process of hearing aid fitting, some users often do this: after a series of checks, they finally say, "I think my hearing is OK now, I can hear it when I speak a little louder, and then I can match it when I can't hear it!" However, Is this really possible?
What many people don't know is that this "wait again" is destroying your residual hearing step by step, which also leads to worse and worse listening effects.
The International Health Organization classifies the degree of hearing loss according to the average hearing loss at 500Hz, 1000Hz, 2000Hz and 4000Hz as follows:
According to the above hearing loss classification, it is concluded that "you can hear a little louder", which is a mild-to-moderate hearing loss. If no timely intervention is performed, the frequency of the language signal received by the auditory center will be reduced, which will cause over time. Decreased central speech discrimination. Compared with hearing loss, the impact of the reduction of central speech recognition ability is more serious, which can cause you to be unable to hear what is being said even if you can finally hear the voice of others.
The speech recognition rate plays an important guiding role in the selection of hearing aids. The worse the speech recognition ability is, the worse the effect of wearing hearing aids will be. The maximum speech recognition rate is greater than 90%:
Therefore, it is recommended that patients with hearing loss must be detected and intervened early. The effect of intervening at the beginning is often much better than when it is necessary to intervene at the end. For children, early intervention is mainly reflected in the awakening and utilization of residual hearing, so that deaf children can establish vocal speech. For adults, early intervention is more important to prevent the decline of speech resolution in addition to maintaining the hearing at the current level as much as possible without declining or delaying the decline time.
Only with early detection and early intervention can the fitting rate of hearing aids in China increase from less than 5% to 40%.