Hearing Aids and Modern Family Football Matters

My dad worked in construction for more than 20 years. He's a wizard with home fix-it projects but also hard of hearing; he said it was from all the power tools around the job site. It used to drive me crazy because unless I was within 6 feet of him, I'd always have to repeat what I said. Dad blamed power saws for being practically deaf in one ear, whether it was the power tool or rock concerts, his life changed dramatically last year when he finally gave in to our advice and got a hearing aid from a local doctor. The man can hear a chuckle from two rooms away and has experienced genuine improvement in his quality of life.
Humans have been using hearing aids long before we were using electricity, in fact some of the first hearing devices date back to the Middle Ages. These amounted to what was basically a megaphone the user would hold up to their ears to catch additional sound waves. Less than fashionable, but acoustic hearing aids were used widely until the early 19th century. As the miniaturization of our industrial technology continued, the hearing-aid industry saw the introduction of carbon-filled microphones which allowed the user to pick up more range and sound frequency. The carbon produced a scratchy sound amplification effect, and was phased out after the implementation of the vacuum tube to hearing aid devices in 1921.
The transistor hearing aid gained popularity during the 1950's and 1960's, these two-piece systems would be called the first "streamline" hearing aid design. Flash ahead to modern-day 21st Century, there's more advanced technology in vending machines than the most sophisticated transistor hearing aid of the 1960's (right around the time my father first started using power tools coincidently).
Most folks today use some form of ear-level device, depending on their individual hearing loss situation. These can be seen in several sub-styles, such as behind-the-ear (BTE), eyeglass style, In-the-ear (ITE), In-the-canal (ITC), Completely-in-the-canal (CIC) or Bone-conduction devices. There are other articles here worth reading if you would like to learn more about the progression of the hearing device.
Dad's doctor helped him decide on a bone-conduction device given his advanced degree of hearing loss in one ear. This little device is impressive, the first unit sits behind his ear and uses a wireless chip to transmit sound signals to a piece that fits in the back of his mouth, over the molar which creates sound vibrations that travel through the bones around the teeth and into a part of the ear called the cochlea which recognizes sound in the impaired ear. A far cry from the metal tubes our forefathers used!
Things around the house have been great since my Dad got his hearing aid, for the most part. There are times that I wish he couldn't hear me as well - our college Alma matters are football rivals and I used to be able to talk trash about his team without concern he would hear. Those days are long gone, unfortunately.