Best Hearing Aids for Severe to Profound Hearing Loss
What is Severe to Profound Hearing Loss?
If you have a hearing loss, then you’ll know how personal the experience truly is. Hearing loss is the third most common condition in the United States, affecting 20% of the population, but there are many different configurations that require personalization of hearing aids.
Hearing aids are the most common treatment for hearing loss, and approximately 30% of hearing aid wearers experience severe to profound levels of hearing loss. People who experience severe are unable to hear sounds below 60 decibels (dB), while profound hearing loss means that sounds below 80dB are difficult to hear. To put this into context, 70% of hearing aid wearers experience mild to moderate hearing loss, and are able to hear sounds between the ranges of 25 to 60 dB.
Consider this: a normal conversation with someone sitting a few feet away registers at 60 dB, while a lawnmower generally clocks in at 90 dB. A person with severe hearing loss will struggle to hear someone speaking near them, while a person with profound hearing loss is unable to hear sounds slightly softer than a lawnmower.
The good news: there are any hearing aids available on the market today to treat severe to profound hearing loss. While hearing aids do not entirely restore one’s hearing back to normal, the use of hearing aids bring many advantages and benefits. With powerful hearing aids, people with severe to profound hearing loss have access to the sounds of everyday life.
Our Best Hearing Aids for Severe to Profound Hearing Loss
At Desert Valley Audiology, we offer devices from the best hearing aid manufacturers around the globe. Below are the models designed to treat severe to profound hearing loss.
Oticon
Oticon offers three power hearing aids to treat severe to profound hearing loss: Dynamo, Sensei SP, and BTE Plus Power. All three models are powered by Oticon’s Inium Sense platform, which is the foundation for their renowned BrainHearing Technology. Inium Sense provides hearing aid wearers with higher gain and output, improved feedback control, and a comfortable listening experience. SpeechRescue provides wearers with enhanced speech recognition, with special attention to high frequency sounds, which may be lost with severe to profound hearing loss.
Phonak
The Phonak Naida V hearing aid features SoundRecover 2, which gives wearers access to high-pitched sounds and the nuances of a full spectrum of sound. With a gain volume, Naida V provides wearers with 60% more robust sound experience than other Phonak hearing aids. When paired with Phonak Roger assistive listening technology, the Naida improves speech understanding in noise and over distance by 62%. The Naida V is available in three models of different degrees of hearing loss.
ReSound
ReSound’s ENZO2 is powered with Smart Hearing and is one of the smallest super power hearing aids on the market. As a wireless hearing aid, ENZO2 allows wearers to connect to their smartphones and tablets, to stream phone conversations, music, and media directly their ears. ReSound’s Spatial Sense feature gives wearers control over the sounds they want to hear in their environment, while also assisting with localizing sound. Even with powerful amplification, ReSound’s feedback cancellation design eliminates the buzzing sounds. ENZO2 is available in High Power and Super Power, and is worn behind the ear.
Siemens/Signia
New from Sivantos Group (parent company of Siemens) is the Signia Primax, the most powerful hearing aid to date from this manufacturer. The Primax has been proven to reduce listening effort by supporting the brain’s auditory process. With improved noise reduction, directionality, and amplification, Primax is able to treat a moderately severe level of hearing loss.
The Siemens Nitro behind-the-ear hearing aid uses BestSound Technology to give wearers outstanding speech intelligibility and listening comfort. With directional microphones and up to 82 dB gain, the Nitro provides wearers with access to very low and very high frequencies, as well as a long battery life.
Widex
SUPER is Widex’s response to severe-profound hearing loss, worn as a receiver-in-the-ear hearing aid. With excellent sound quality, SUPER enhances speech recognition, making a conversation with multiple speakers or speech in noisy environments easier to hear. SUPER has a long battery life, and is water-resistant for those with active lifestyles.