How do hearing aids work? Are they just blasting what they hear directly into the ear potentially causing more damage?

Question

How do hearing aids work? Are they just blasting what they hear directly into the ear potentially causing more damage?

In: Biology

Answer 1

They do increase the volume of what they hear, but only up to a safe limit, so they don’t damage the ear. These limits are set by the fitter based on a hearing test.

There’s lots of other processing that they do to avoid blasting everything, and only what the hearer wants to hear. There is a LOT of research that goes into how exactly to do this.