How much should I use my hearing aids every day?
- Koorosh Nejad
- 10 hours ago
- 4 min read
If you have just been prescribed to use hearing aids by your audiologist or your ENT, or you have been using hearing aids for a long time, the answer is the same: as much as you can. This article elaborates on why using hearing aids regularly can help your mental health.
Related articles:
As you saw in my previous post (see it here), the impact on your cognitive resources due to hearing loss is two-fold: a. deterioration of the cognitive power due to ageing, and b. shift in the cognitive resources of your brain from your auditory cortex to other processing centres. Both impacts are very gradual, and when a shift happens, it is often not 100% reversible.
How soon should I start using hearing aids?
In my experience, most patients do not start using hearing aids until their hearing loss drops to the moderate level. We intuitively learn to lipread, which helps us to compensate for a mild hearing loss. Our visual cues, including facial expressions and body language, help us avoid considering hearing aids or using them all the time until we notice that we are missing the conversation a lot. Missing a conversation, asking people to repeat what they said and laughing at the jokes that you didn't get has a psychological effect. Often, this is when all or some range of your hearing loss gets into the moderate hearing loss (please see this article on how to read an audiogram).
The hearing aids can compensate for the decline in your peripheral auditory system, e.g., a drop in your hearing. The sooner you address your hearing loss and fill the gap with hearing aids, the better, yes, when the hearing loss is at a mild level. Such a step ensures that your brain receives the same level of audio and linguistic stimuli as when you didnt have any hearing loss, hence the shift in cognitive processing power from your auditory cortex to other senses will not happen or will be minimal. Please read this article for more details.
Can I use hearing aids only for watching TV or in social events?
A simple answer is yes, but as we discussed above your brain can benefit from using hearing aids all the time. If you are by your own doing gardening, walking in the park or other solo activity still your brain can hear the background sound that is important stimuli for your auditory cortex.
I have received a pair of hearing aids. How often I shouold use them?
My advise to the first time users of hearing aids is to use your common sense. Your brain has not been hearing certain frequencies for a long time. Be kind to your neaural system. Listen to your body. Use your hearing aids for a couple of hours in your home to start. Over a week or two increase the use of the hearing aids and if you feel comfortable use them most of the time if not all, at the end of the 2-3 weeks period.
What do statistics tell us?
Here’s a concise, referenced summary that I could gather. This summary is focused on age brackets on how many people have hearing loss, and how many use hearing aids in the UK / Europe:
Hearing-loss prevalence rises steeply with age. WHO/European estimates show ~10–11% prevalence in 60–69 year-olds, rising to ≈42% in 80–89 year-olds and >56% in people 90+. World Health Organisation
Hearing-aid uptake is much lower than the number of people with measurable hearing loss. In UK samples, only a small fraction of adults with objective evidence of hearing loss report using hearing aids (examples below: 2.0% of 40–69 year-olds were regular users in one population sample; among those 40–69 with objectively poor hearing, ~9% used hearing aids). PMC
In older age groups, hearing-aid ownership/use increases but remains well below need. Reviews report hearing-aid use rising across decades (e.g., ~4.3% in ages 50–59 to ~22.1% in people 80+ in pooled literature), but many older adults with clinically significant hearing loss remain untreated. PMC
Conclusion
Hearing loss is not an apparent health problem to many. If you notice that you or someone that you know is struggling to follow the conversation take a couple of simple steps to understand the nature of the problem. Often a 5 minutes online hearing test is a good starting point.
Referenves
Dawes P, et al. Hearing in middle age: a population snapshot of 40–69 year-olds (UK Biobank). 2014. (regular hearing-aid users ~2.0% in 40–69). PMC
Sawyer CS, Armitage CJ, Munro KJ, Dawes P. Correlates of Hearing Aid Use in UK Adults (UK Biobank analysis). Ear & Hearing, 2019 — Among 18,730 aged 40–69 with poor hearing, 9% used hearing aids; older age, tinnitus and chronic illness predicted use; ethnicity and living alone predicted lower use. PubMed
Roth TN, Hanebuth D, Probst R. Prevalence of age-related hearing loss in Europe: a review. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol, 2011. (classic review on age-stratified prevalence). PMC
WHO. Deafness and hearing loss (fact sheet). WHO (2025 update/facts) — summaries of age-stratified prevalence and global burden. World Health Organisation
Fortnum HM, Davis AC, Summerfield AQ. Prevalence of permanent childhood hearing impairment in the UK and implications for universal neonatal hearing screening. 2001 (prevalence ~1.65/1000). PMC
McCormack A, Fortnum H. Why do people fitted with hearing aids not wear them? Int J Audiol, 2013 — review summarising age-group adoption percentages (e.g., 4.3% for 50–59 up to 22.1% for 80+ across pooled literature). PMC
Systematic reviews on paediatric and older adult hearing-aid use: Salamatmanesh et al. (paediatric systematic review), Hooper et al. (factors in dementia + hearing-aid use) — see links above. Taylor & Francis Online
Did you enjoy this article?
If you found this article useful, please click on one of the social share buttons below and share it with a friend looking for professional advice on hearing aids and hearing care. After all, sharing is caring. Thank you.
Comments