If you are one of the 466 million people worldwide with hearing loss, you will likely have a hearing aid to help improve your communication and keep you connected with friends and family. But hearing aids don’t just offer improved hearing. They are also packed with the latest technology and features.

Today’s hearing aids can stream audio, make hands-free calls, transcribe, translate messages, record the number of steps you take and even send a warning message to your contacts that you have fallen. Hearing aids are complex medical devices and while you can make small adjustments yourself, tuning your hearing aid should be left to a hearing care professional.

If you have worn your hearing aids for some time but the hearing aids are no longer functioning optimally for you, they may need some adjustments. The change in your hearing aids’ performance could be caused by:

• Earwax. The hearing aid may have become blocked with earwax or there is a build-up of wax in the ear. This can be addressed by your hearing care provider
• Change in your hearing. Your hearing care provider will be able to reassess your hearing and change the settings on your hearing aids accordingly
• Software updates. Hearing aid manufacturers often provide software updates. You should follow up with your hearing care provider to have your hearing aid software updated or do this yourself via an app on your smartphone. 

Some hearing aids on the market make it possible for your hearing care professional to make adjustments to your hearing aids remotely, and fine-tune your hearing aids to ensure more accurate fitting. But there are some slight adjustments you can make yourself thanks to hearing aid technology and your smartphone app.

During your initial hearing aid fitting, your hearing care professional will have asked you to test the hearing aids at different volumes to find the setting that provides the clearest and comfortable hearing for you. But if once you are home and going about your normal routine you find that you want your hearing aids to be louder, quieter or to reduce background noise, you can make these adjustments yourself. 

• Manually: There are controls on your hearing aid that operate the volume settings and you can adjust these to a comfortable level.
• Smartphone: If your hearing aids are connected to a device, such as your smartphone, and you have a control app then you can use this to change the volume

Today’s hearing aids combined with smartphone technology enable you to adjust your hearing aids to different listening environments like a restaurant, the theater, or if you are in a quiet group. Utilizing multiple memories, hearing aids can also automatically adjust, for example when you visit a specific restaurant. 

It’s a good idea to have your hearing aids retuned by a hearing care professional every six months to a year. Even a slight change in your hearing aid’s programming can make a huge difference to the quality of sounds you can hear. During this tune-up, your hearing care professional can also give your hearing aids a maintenance check. For instance, hearing aid tube replacement should be done every four to six months so that your hearing aids continue to work at optimum performance.

Attempting to retune your hearing aid yourself could over-amplify sounds and pose a risk to your hearing health. But while you may not be able to carry out comprehensive adjustments and retuning of your hearing aids, you can ensure that your hearing aids are regularly serviced and maintained by your hearing care professional so they continue to work optimally for you.