How to Enjoy Fall Festivities with Hearing Aids: A Comprehensive Guide

There is nothing stopping you from enjoying everything that life can offer you, whether you have glasses or another ability aid that helps you to move around day-to-day. For many with hearing loss, though, fall festivities and any other concerts or events can be particularly challenging. Large family gatherings or crowds of people enjoying pumpkin festivals can offer a good chance to catch up with people around you, but it can be very challenging to your hearing if you have hearing loss.

If you have hearing aids, it’s important that you wear them to all events, as your audiologist will explain to you during an appointment to get them fitted. Wearing your hearing aids is going to ensure that you are able to get around the room and enjoy the company of others while being able to hear everybody and everything. Hearing aids make things louder for you.

Modern hearing aids are designed to filter out unwanted noise, such as the clashes of dishes in the kitchen or background music at a concert. They are there to help you to focus on speech. So, if you want to know how to enjoy the full festivities with your hearing aids, take a look at our comprehensive guide below.

Hearing Aids

The environment that you are in during the fall festivities can have an impact on you with your hearing loss. Hearing aids have features that are really put to work within crowded places. There are three main styles of hearing aids like behind the ear (BTE), in the ear (ITE) and in the canal (ITC). Talk with your audiologist about which would be best for you and your hearing needs. So, whether you are going to pick out your pumpkin for Halloween or you are heading to a bonfire, here’s what you can do.

Enhancing Speech

As most modern hearing aids reduce noise by using a speech enhancer, your audiologist can talk you through the technology that works to reduce background noise. This then will help you to focus on what you need to hear rather than what you are hearing and cut back on that distortion in close collaboration with the directional microphones.

Go Somewhere Quiet

When you’re going to an event with lots of people and noise, it’s a good idea to find a quieter area away from the loudspeakers and noisy crowds. Choose a spot in a corner where you can still see everything and enjoy yourself without too much disturbance. This way, you’ll be able to have better conversations with individuals instead of being distracted by the background noise. You could also ensure that any background noise is coming at you from behind, so your directional microphone picks up the speech in front of you instead.

Bring a Friend with You

Bringing a friend or a relative with you that you could hang out with will help. Not only will they help you to feel more included in the conversation, but they will already know the cues that you are comfortable with to get you to move from place to place. They will then also repeat to you the things that you may not understand and help you to know where to go next.

Look at Other People’s Faces When They Are Talking

When you are in a crowded place or you’re going to a concert, you need to look into the face of the person speaking so that you can understand what it is they are trying to say to you without panicking that you’re going to miss hearing anybody. If you’re not looking at the person, you’re might not pick up the right sound with your hearing aids.

Try to Avoid Going at Nighttime

There are many different effects that happen throughout the fall, but if you can make sure that you go in the afternoon rather than the evening, you’ll be able to continue good lighting during the day. You need good lighting to be able to see the faces of the people that you are trying to understand.

You do not have to miss out on festivities when you have hearing aids. If you do have hearing loss, talk to an audiologist about the steps you can take to prevent further loss. Need more advice? Schedule an appointment with an audiologist at Hearing Solutions of Northwest Michigan. Call us today at (231) 518-4422.