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Some hearing aids can use the Bluetooth wireless feature of your cell phone to send your caller’s voice directly to the hearing aid, just as the cell phone sends the signal to a Bluetooth hands-free headset. This convenient feature is a great help particularly when using the cell phone in a noisy situation.

Audia Hearing Care Centre Inc.
205A, 1610 - 37th Street SW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T3C 3P1 Tel: 403-685-5571, Fax: 403-685-5591 Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved

The Shell is simply the plastic housing. It changes depending on whether you want your hearing aid to mount behind your ear, in your ear or completely in your ear canal.

The Circuit refers to the computer technology that is programmed into the hearing aid. Hearing Aid Circuits with lots of features, automation modes and abilities in complex noise situations cost more than those with few features.

Audia Hearing Care Centre offers many different kinds of hearing aid Shells and Circuits, including the latest digital Circuit technologies. We are confident we can find a good match for you.

These instruments are the smallest size of hearing aids, practically invisible to an observer. Custom designed to fit the wearer's ear, CIC hearing aids fit deep inside the ear canal and most closely resemble the natural hearing process.

CIC designates a size of hearing aids, but does not describe the circuit inside the shell. CIC instruments can have any of the various levels of digital sound processing technology housed within their tiny casing, but because of their size, they do not always have as many features as larger aids, such as external volume controls, or tele-coils for assisting with hearing on the telephone.

CIC hearing aids are meant for people with ear canals large enough to accommodate the device’s deep insertion into the ear and for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. They are not usually recommended for people with dexterity problems because they are very small instruments with tiny batteries.

These hearing aids are slightly larger than CICs, but still very small. Like CICs, ITCs also require a customized shell taken from an impression of the user’s ear. All of the electronics are within the shell of the device. With the larger size comes more amplification.

ITE hearing aids can be used for a wide range of hearing losses. Due to their size, ITE hearing aids allow for larger receivers, which enables the hearing aid to provide greater gain (volume) and more features such as an automatic telephone coil, which allows individuals with severe hearing losses to use the telephone without feedback (whistling). Since they are larger in size, they are easier to handle for those with dexterity problems. This type of hearing aid fills the outer ear. The hearing aid case is custom made of a hard plastic material. As shown, the hearing aid case houses all of the miniaturized hearing aid parts. The ITE style is available with the various levels of digital technology. ITE hearing aids have a bigger battery, which means a longer run time than smaller hearing aids.

The BTE is the classic hearing instrument that we’ve all known for decades. BTEs hook over the user’s ear and a sound tube guides the amplified sound to a custom ear mold fitted specifically for the wearer’s ear. Although this is the largest and most visible type of hearing aid, it is also the most powerful and often the easiest to adjust. BTE hearing aids are appropriate for the treatment of almost all types of hearing loss. As well, BTE hearing aids can be utilized with external sound sources such as auditory training equipment, infrared listening systems, FM systems, devices for telephone use, or television amplifying systems.

Thanks to the miniaturization technology pioneered in CICs and the brilliant insight to make the sound tube small, a new and very trendy BTE hearing aid has emerged. The Open Fit hearing aid fits snugly behind the ear. Rather than trying to blend in with skin-tone-coloured shells, it comes in funky colours to help you set your own personal fashion statement and its narrow sound tube is practically invisible. Another great benefit is the earpiece inserted into the ear canal is round. It does not need to be custom molded and comes in different sizes to fit different widths of ear canals. Patients can be fit immediately following their hearing evaluation. The Open Fit hearing aid leaves the ear canal more open, making it ideal for those with mild to moderate high-frequency hearing loss.

Hearing aid technology has made great advances in recent years. Many people feel a hearing aid of any kind; either behind the ear or in the ear is unsightly. But in many cases hearing aids are now so small they are virtually unnoticeable.

Hearing Aids are composed of two main components:
• The Shell
• The Circuit

Keeping your hearing aid clean and dry is very important for optimal function. Hearing aid batteries, wax guards, cleaning tools, overnight aid dryers and other items are available for the care and maintenance of your hearing aids.

Hearing aids continuously monitor noise levels versus speech and other desirable sounds and automatically change the way desirable sound is presented to the wearer as the wearer moves through different sound situations. This ensures optimal sound presentation without any manual intervention by the wearer.

Hearing aids can distinguish sharp, abrupt noises like a door banging, someone hammering or dishes clattering together and suppress these abrupt sounds instead of passing them to the wearer. This greatly enhances the comfort of a hearing aid wearer over persons with normal hearing, because the normal hearing person must listen to the sharp, disturbing sounds at their regular volume.

Many hearing aids come with remote controls the size of key fobs, allowing the user to change programs, see battery levels without pulling the battery out to test it, see the date and time, even use it as an alarm that only the wearer can hear because the sound is emitted in the hearing aid rather than from the remote. Many senior hearing aid wearers are now using this alarm feature to remind them of important medication moments in the day.

Hearing aid wearers can instruct one aid to perform more sound collection than the other, and wirelessly transfer the sound from the single aid to both aids. This is especially useful for car drivers trying to hear the passengers in their car rather than the road noise coming through the window near their shoulder.

Some situations cause whistling and echo feedback, such as in concert halls, gymnasiums and other large spaces where sound can reverberate off the walls. Hearing aids can now distinguish these unpleasant artificial sounds from desirable sounds and block the undesirable ones from being amplified.