Question: Is there some sort of treatment / gadget that helps the deaf hear?

Hanna Jeffery answered on 4 Mar 2019:

It depends…

Hearing problems may be because of a problem in the ‘inner ear’ (the cochlea – the part which actually detects sounds) or the ‘middle ear’ (the eardrum and the little bones in the ear).

The first option for most people is a hearing aid. This picks up sounds and simply makes them louder. Using a hearing aid never gives you ‘normal’ hearing, but it can make things a lot easier. Not everyone wants one! Some people just don’t like the look of them, while some people prefer to use other things, like texting, using sign language and lip reading.

If the problem is a middle ear problem, then there may be an operation which can help.

There are hearing aids which can be fixed to the skull (‘bone anchored hearing aids’) for people who can’t use a normal hearing aid.

For people with very little hearing, a cochlear implant can help. This is a small electric wire which is put inside the inner ear during an operation. The person then wears something like a hearing aid on the outside of their ear and the two parts connect using a magnet. The sound that people hear through a cochlear implant is very different from normal hearing, but it does allow people to hear sounds they otherwise wouldn’t hear at all.

There is lots of research happening to try and make treatments to cure hearing loss – so people in the future might not have to use electronic devices to hear better. However, some people don’t like the idea of this because they enjoy using sign language and would be sad if it wasn’t used any more.