How To Determine Hearing Aid Dome Size

The dome is arguably i of the most important components of your hearing assist. Proper sizing is crucial for the device"s functionality.

Proper hearing assistance dome sizing tin be the difference between hearing your environs clearly and being treated to a cacophony of feedback. Today, nosotros're going to talk a bit well-nigh what that sizing involves. But kickoff, nosotros'll start with an overview of what a dome really is.

What Is a Hearing Aid Dome?

There are many unlike hearing aid styles. Used primarily for receiver-in-ear (RIE) and backside-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids, the dome is a pocket-sized silicone or plastic roofing that goes over the receiver. It serves a dual purpose. First, it helps anchor the receiver inside the ear, much like an earbud on a pair of headphones.

Information technology as well helps straight or funnel sound from the receiver into the ear canal.

Are Hearing Aid Domes Necessary?

Yes and no. Generally speaking, you're going to be choosing between either a dome or an earmold. For the nearly part, domes are intended for people with mild to moderate hearing loss, while earmolds are used by anyone with severe or profound hearing loss. The main difference between the two is that domes are interchangeable and come in preset sizes, while earmolds are fitted directly to a patient's ear.

What Are the Different Types of Hearing Aid Dome?

There are three types of hearing assist domes in full, each with its own advantages, drawbacks, and platonic utilize instance.

Open Hearing Assistance Domes

As the proper noun suggests, open domes allow natural audio to pass through the dome into the ear. On the one hand, this helps the sound delivered by the hearing help to sound more than natural, particularly where environmental racket is concerned. On the other paw, open up domes tend to have issues with sound leakage, aren't as well-suited for low-frequency audio, and tend to require slightly more power than other dome styles.

Open hearing aid domes are also designed to foreclose a phenomenon known as the occlusion effect.

Basically, this refers to hearing one'southward own voice every bit a sort of booming echo. If you desire to experience this, but plug your ears and try speaking. Typically, the occlusion effect is non an issue for individuals with severe or profound hearing loss.

Coincidentally, the apoplexy consequence is why earmold hearing aids aren't by and large recommended to anyone with severe hearing loss.

Closed Hearing Assist Domes

Besides known equally tulip domes, closed hearing aid domes have slightly less venting than open up domes. This allows them to offer better amplification of depression-frequency sounds compared to open domes. Closed domes tend to convey higher-frequency sounds as slightly muted or dingy.

Power Hearing Help Domes

Ability hearing aid domes block the entire ear canal, eliminating environmental feedback and forming a consummate seal. They're intended for individuals with astringent or profound hearing loss. Generally speaking, yet, earmolds are oftentimes a amend selection than ability domes, equally they tin be fitted specifically to one's ear.

Why Is Dome Size Important?

Because domes aren't custom-fitted, dome measurement and choice is finer a matter of finding the 1 that most closely matches a patient's ears. When fitting a new hearing aid, the audiologist will test a few different dome sizes. A properly fitted dome will exist just slightly larger than the ear culvert and so that information technology can stay put, but non big enough that information technology'southward uncomfortable.

How Can You Tell Your Hearing Assistance Dome is the Right Size?

Dome size is more than just a thing of comfort. And information technology will usually be apparent very quickly if a hearing aid dome is improperly fitted.

If a dome is also small, at that place may exist too much feedback for the hearing aid to function. It may not even emit sound at all. An undersized dome usually won't stay put inside one'due south ear, either.

On the other hand, if the dome is also large, information technology will speedily begin to feel uncomfortable. It volition likely crusade some irritation, or even soreness and swelling. In the worst-case scenario, an oversized dome may even end up getting stuck in your ear canal.

If this happens, do not attempt to remove it yourself. You run the hazard of lodging information technology even deeper into your ear by doing and so, potentially fifty-fifty dissentious your eardrum in the process. Instead, pay a visit to urgent intendance or your general practitioner to have them bargain with it for you.