A selection of instructional videos on hearing aid maintenance.
How To Turn Your Hearing Aid Off And On
Video Transcript
All modern digital hearing aids are turned on and off by opening and closing the door to the battery compartment which is located at the bottom of the hearing aid.
Every time the hearing aid is removed from the ear it needs to be turned off to stop the battery from running down.
Find the catch to the battery compartment either on the bottom or the back of the hearing aid and pull it slightly open.
Some older hearing aid types have a push button to open the battery compartment and some older hearing aids have a switch instead that has to be switched to ‘0’ to turn the hearing aid off and to ‘M’ to turn the hearing aid on.
To turn the hearing aid on just close the battery door. Some hearing aids will start working straight away but others have a built-in delay to give you time to put the hearing aid in your ear before they start working.
How To Change Your Hearing Aid Battery
Video Transcript
When a battery in the hearing aid needs to be changed most hearing aids will play a signal through the hearing aid, something like a beep.
Battery life differs between different types of hearing aids but can be as short as seven days.
When you are changing the battery it’s often a good idea to hold the hearing aid over a tray with a raised edge so the battery doesn’t roll away if it’s accidentally dropped.
To change the battery open the door to the battery compartment. The catch for the door is either at the bottom or the back of the hearing aid. Open the battery compartment fully.
Find your pack of unused batteries, pull open the cardboard flap at the back of the pack, move the carousel around till a new battery appears and pull it out of the pack. Peel the sticker off the back of the hearing aid battery and just let it sit for a couple of minutes before you use it. Hearing aid batteries are air activated and only start working after the sticker has been removed so they work best if they’re given a chance to fully activate before being put into the hearing aid.
Batteries have two different sides, a flat side which is the positive terminal of the battery and a raised side with a bump which is the negative side.
Before you remove the old battery from the hearing aid note which way round the battery is sitting in the battery compartment. Take the old battery out and place the new battery in the battery compartment the same way round. Close the door and the hearing aid should start working again if the battery is in the correct way around.
Hearing aid batteries that have been used should not just be disposed in the general waste, they need to be recycled correctly. They can be recycled at any battery recycling point, often these can been found in large supermarkets. Edinburgh Council also collects batteries via their kerbside recycling service.
Finally remember to keep batteries away from children and pets as they are harmful if they are swallowed.
How To Clean Your Hearing Aid
Video Transcript
The main aim of cleaning the hearing aid is to prevent any wax or debris blocking the path of the sound as it goes from the hearing aid into your ear.
All plastics that are in contact with the ear will discolour with time and this colour cannot be removed.
The tubing that’s used with all types of hearing aids does have to be changed regularly to keep the hearing aid working well and this can be done about every six to twelve months at the Audiology Department by making an appointment at our repair clinic or at home with practice.
The way you clean the hearing aid depends on the type of hearing aid that you have.
Slim-fit hearing aids have a thin tube leading from the hearing aid to the plastic dome that sits inside the ear.
To clean this type of hearing aid you need a thin plastic cleaning wire that should have been supplied by the Audiology Department when you had the hearing aid fitted. If you don’t have one of these please contact the Audiology Department and ask for one to be sent to you.
If you have two hearing aids please clean one at a time to make sure they don’t get mixed up. All hearing aids are colour-coded and have colour markers on both the inside of the hearing aids and on the tubes which show which hearing aid is which so everything for the right ear is marked with a red marker and everything for the left hearing aid is marked with a blue marker just in case things get confused.
To clean the hearing aids the first thing you need to do is remove the tube from the back of the hearing aid. The way you do this depends on the type of hearing aid that you have. On some hearing aids the thin tube is removed by simple screw thread so all you have to do is unscrew the top of the tube and it will come off the back of the hearing aid. Then to clean the tube you pick the cleaning wire up. The part that has come off the top of the hearing aid has a hole, the wire gets passed down through the hole all the way through the tubing, it comes out the other end and pushes any wax or debris out and pull the wire all the way through. The hole is then placed on to the sound outlet and simply screwed back on in a clockwise direction.
For other types of hearing aids, the way you take the thin tube off the rest of the hearing aid is by a bayonet fitting. So what you have to do is you have to turn it to either nine o’clock or to three o’clock and then pull. Again there is a hole at the top of the tube, the cleaning wire goes down through the hole all the way through the tube and out the other end. The hole at the top of the tube is then placed on the little golden sound outlet, but this time straight up and down, and just pushed straight back on. Sometimes there is a little wax guard at the end at the top of the dome. In this case when you are pushing the wire down through the tube it will get stuck when it reaches the the wax guard, in which case you have to move the wax guard to one side to enable the wire to be pushed all the way through.
When the hearing aid is new, the bayonet attachment is often very stiff and can be difficult to turn to remove the tubing. If this is the case what you can do is use a small pair of pliers to help you. In this case you grip the top of the the tubing coming from underneath the hearing aid, just grip it lightly, and then use it to help turn the tubing and pull it off.
Remember to never immerse the thin tubing and dome in water as the water will be get stuck in the thin tube and will block the path of the sound.
If you get any wax around the dome that sits in the ear you can use a damp wipe – something like a baby wipe – just to clean any wax off the end.
Alternatively some hearing aids are attached by a thicker piece of tubing to a custom-made ear mould which sits inside the ear. The ear mould is attached to the body of the hearing aid by plastic tubing. The end of the tubing that sits inside the ear can become blocked with wax. This should be checked regularly and the wax removed using a tool such as a wax pick which can be supplied by the Audiology Department. The wax pick is inserted in the end of the tubing and any wax is lifted out of the end of the tubing.
If the hearing aid tubing becomes blocked and this cannot be cleared, it is possible to wash the tubing and the ear mould to try and clean it. If you have two hearing aids it is a good idea to do this one at a time. Again all hearing aids and ear moulds are colour-coded. If it has a red colour marker it is for the right ear and a blue colour marker is for the left ear.
To wash the ear mould and tubing what you need to do is first remove it from the body of the hearing aid and to do that you grasp the tubing and pull it away from the hook. If this is not possible to do because the tubing is very old and hard, then you do need to make an appointment at Audiology Repair Clinic to get the tubing changed. If you cannot attend the Repair Clinic it is possible for someone else to bring the hearing aid to your appointment to get this done. It is also possible to post the hearing aid with a note requesting a retube to the departmental address which is on the back of your yellow battery book.
Once you have removed the tubing from the hearing aid you must wash only the tubing and the mould. The hearing aid must never come in contact with any water because that will damage the electronics of the hearing aid.
You wash the mould and tubing in some warm soapy water with detergent. It is a good idea to let it soak to try and soften any wax or debris that’s inside the tubing.
After washing the tubing should be rinsed with some clean water and then shaken to remove most of the water out of the tubing. At this stage you can also use a little air puffer that you can buy from private hearing aid dispensers or photography shops to blow out any remaining water that is in the tube.
You need to leave the mould in a warm place overnight to dry thoroughly. Do not place the mould or tubing directly on a heat source as it could damage the mould and the tubing.
When the mould and tubing is dry you need to reattach it to the hearing aid. First of all you need to line it up correctly, so for the left hearing aid you need to have the ear mould with the sound outlet facing in towards where your ear would be sitting, to push the tubing back onto the hook of the hearing aid. If the hearing aid doesn’t work after the mould and tubing has been washed then you do need to make an appointment at the Repair Clinic to get the tubing changed, or if you’re able to you can do this yourself.
How To Change Your Hearing Aid Tubing
Video Transcript
How to change the tubing of your hearing aid depends on which type of hearing aid you have.
If you have a slim fit hearing aid the department will supply you with replacement tubing and domes and they are changed at the same time.
If you have two hearing aids, both the hearing aids and tubing are normally colour-coded, so the hearing aid will have a little colour marker on it and also the tubing will have a coloured number near the end of the tubing to show you which side is which – red for right and blue for left. I would recommend doing one hearing aid at a time to make sure they don’t get mixed up.
The first thing you need to do is remove the old tubing from the hearing aid.
With some hearing aids you do this by simply unscrewing the top of the tubing from the hearing aid. Unscrew the old tubing and screw on the new tubing in a clockwise direction. For other hearing aids the fitting on the top of the hearing aid is not a screw fitting but a bayonet fitting. To remove the old tubing you need to turn the hearing aid to either nine o’clock or three o’clock and pull. Get the new piece of tubing and then push it straight back on to the top of the hearing aid.
If you have a hearing aid with thicker tubing and a custom-made ear mould, you’ll need a different method to change the tubing and you also need some tools. You will need a small pair of pliers and a pair of sharp scissors or a pair of cutters. You will also need a supply of tubing from your Audiology Department of the correct size.
Tubing comes in a few different types. Most hearing aids take the standard type of tubing but some moulds need a slightly thicker tubing and again an even slightly thicker tubing. Some moulds use specialist tubing like this Libby tubing which has a flared end, you need to ask your Audiology department for the correct type of tubing for you to be able to to retube your mould, but most hearing aids will use a standard type of tubing.
To start off with what you need to do is detach the hearing aid from the mould and tubing. If you have two hearing aids it’s a good idea to do one at a time. The hearing aid and the mould are both colour coded. There will be a little coloured dot on the hearing aid to show which side it is and the mould usually has some writing on. Right sided hearing aids have red markers and left sided hearing aids have blue markers.
Hold the ear mould in one hand and grip the tubing where it comes out of the ear mould on the outer side with a pair of pliers and just gently pull with the pliers to remove the tubing. If it is difficult to get the tubing out you can roll the pliers round and round to gently ease the tubing out of the mould, rather than pulling very hard.
If your tubing is very hard or your ear mould is very old, I would recommend first getting the tubing replaced at the Audiology Department because there is a risk that the tubing or the ear mould might break while you’re trying to do this. It’s best to do this process only if your tubing has been changed within the last six to nine months.
When you remove the tubing from the ear mould don’t throw it away, just place it to one side. Then take a new piece of tubing and taper the end of the tubing to fit it through the ear mould. The tubing has a u-shape with end shorter than the other end. Trim the short end to form a point, to be able to thread it through the ear mould. Get a pair of scissors and start cutting about two inches from the base of the ‘u’ to make a point at the end. Start at the side and cut across the tubing using your finger as a guide to make a point. You might need to trim the ends just to make a nice sharp point.
When you have the tubing tapered, start threading it through the ear mould from the outside. You need to have the long end of the tubing pointing at roughly about eleven o’clock. You don’t want it facing back downwards, or to the side, you want it facing out about eleven o’clock. You thread the tubing through the hole until it comes out the other side and then you pull the tubing through. You may need to use a pair of pliers to help you do this. Keep pulling through until the tubing is roughly at a ninety degree angle to the ear mould – you may need to twist it around. When it’s in the right position, you can cut the end of the tubing off on the inside of the ear mould using a pair of sharp scissors. To get the correct tubing length take the old piece of tubing and line it up with the ear mould so the bend is at the same place. Line the two pieces of tubing up together and make a sharp cut. Now you have the ear mould with the same length of tubing as before.
The last stage is just replacing it, pushing the tubing back on to the hook of the hearing aid. You need to line up the hearing aid and the mould together so they are facing in the right direction and then you push the end of the tubing onto the hook. Usually the hook has a little lip on it that limits how far you can push the tubing on, but if not you need to overlap the tubing by a quarter of an inch or so to make sure the tubing is firmly attached to the hearing aid. That will be the hearing aid with the new tubing attached to the mould.
If you have a friend or relative to help you they can always make sure that you get the tubing cut to the right length. After you put the tubing through the ear mould and cut the end off on the side facing the ear, your friend or relative can put the ear mould into your ear, place the hearing aid on top of the ear and use a pen just to mark the tubing to be cut where it overlaps the hook of the hearing aid. Take the ear mould out of the ear and cut the tubing where its marked. Push the ear mould onto the hook of the hearing aid and the tubing should be cut so the hearing aid is sitting nice and neatly on top of the ear.
