Hearing Aids Hearing Aids Nature of hearing loss Hearing impairment is the inability to perceive and understand acoustic stimuli. Conductive hearing loss results mainly in attenuation of the acoustic signals. Sensori-neural hearing loss, however, results in a combination of attenuation and distortion factors.
Attenuation is a relatively easy problem to correct by amplification.
Ideally, and in a simplistic sense, the region of amplification should correspond to the region of the hearing loss. The rationale is to overcome the attenuation that results from the hearing loss. A body hearing aid is the oldest style of electronic hearing aid. The body hearing aid is typically worn around the waist or in the front of the chest. The output of the hearing aid is transmitted by a cord to the wearer's ear through the use of a regular earmold.