Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D., with Steve Barber

You want to be careful to match mono plugs to mono jacks and stereo plugs to stereo jacks when using music equipment. If you don’t, you can end up with problems. My friend Steve explained,

I’d been happily using my neckloop (a standard Williams neckloop) with my iPod Touch for nearly a year. Mostly I used it for listening to talk radio podcasts, so the fact that the neckloop had a mono plug that I was inserting into a stereo jack didn’t bother me at all. I could understand speech pretty well, as long as there wasn’t a lot of music or cackling banter behind the speech.

As my hearing continued to improve over the last couple of years with my cochlear implant (CI), I’ve started listening to music. It’s not always like I remember it, but I’ve found if I select my songs carefully after previewing them from the iTunes store, some of them are actually enjoyable.

I recently learned one thing that’s improved my enjoyment of some songs. One such song is Ray Charles “What’d I say”. It has a great instrumental lead in with good beat that sounds pretty normal. However, when he started singing, he sounded like he was far away. I immediately realized that my neckloop’s mono plug was only receiving one stereo channel, and he had recorded the vocal on the other stereo channel. Thus, I could only hear it “distantly”. [This recording is a particularly good example of extreme separation between both stereo channels—with the music almost exclusively on one channel and the voice almost exclusively on the other. Normally you get a better mix of voice and music on each channel so it is not as noticeable.]

I rushed out to Radio Shack, and bought a 3.5 mm stereo male to 3.5 mm mono female adaptor (part number 274-374) for less than $3.00, and voila, Ray is out of the barrel! It sure makes a big difference on that song!

If you are listening to a stereo device, you should never plug in a mono neckloop, earbud or headphone. Instead, do what Steve did, and get the proper adapter from Radio Shack. That way you will be able to hear the sounds from both stereo channels via your mono neckloop. Also, and this is important, you will not short out the other stereo channel as you do when you plug a mono device into a stereo jack. Doing so can damage your musical device.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained,

I have total loss of hearing in my right ear (treated acoustic neuroma) and moderate hearing loss in my left ear. I wear a BTE hearing aid in my left ear. Can you come up with some type of system that would enable me to hear my wife’s soft voice without constantly asking her to repeat herself when we are out together in the car.

I understand your situation. I can’t hear my wife in the car either. Since you are deaf in your right ear, your left ear has to do all the work. This results in two problems when you are driving. The first problem is what we call the “head shadow” effect. This is where your head effectively blocks most of the sound from your wife as it has to travel around your head to reach your opposite ear. Second, since your left hearing aid is beside the window, it picks up traffic and road noise better than your wife’s voice, which further exacerbates the situation.

Fortunately, there is a easy, and relatively cheap, solution to your problem. It works great for me, and should work great for you too. Here’s what I do.

I use a PockeTalker, lapel microphone. and either a neckloop or earbuds. The PockeTalker is a small portable personal amplifier. I normally put it in the cup holder between the front seats. To use it, I unplug the microphone that comes with the PockeTalker, and plug in the semi-directional lapel microphone I love. This microphone comes with an alligator clip that my wife clips to her collar or clothes close to her mouth.

To hear via the PockeTalker, I have two choices, depending whether I choose to wear my hearing aids or not. If I choose to wear my hearing aids, I plug a neckloop into the earphone jack on the PockeTalker, put it around my neck, switch my hearing aids to their T-coil mode and hear her voice loud and clear that way.

If I choose not to wear my hearing aids, I just plug the PockeTalker’s ear buds into the earphone jack instead of the neckloop, turn it on and adjust the volume for my wife’s voice. Now I can hear almost everything she says with little trouble. Both ways work great.

The same system also works great in noisy restaurants, or anywhere you and your wife are seated either beside each other, or across from each other.

Besides hearing my wife loud and clear, the good news is that this system doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg either!

Here is the link to the PockeTalker and accessories page. The PockeTalker is shown at the top of the page. The neckloop I recommend (NKL 001) is the 8th picture down, and directly below it is the Lapel microphone (MIC 054).

This is all you need for your application. Try it and see if you don’t love this solution as much as I do.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

I am looking at a loop system for my home to be used with the telecoils in my hearing aids. I want to use it primarily to help me converse when a lot of people are in the house. I am looking at the Univox line and I have a couple of questions.

1. How many microphones (I like the Radio Shack wireless/patch cord option) are the systems limited to?

2. Will it work effectively with a room microphone?

The Univox line of loop amplifiers are great amplifiers. That is why I carry them. I have looped one end of my house using the DLS-50 Univox loop amplifier, and am very pleased with the results.

Now to answer your questions.

1. The Univox DLS-50 has three ports (jacks) on the back, so you could plug in up to 3 microphones at a time—but I’ve never tried using that many microphones in that way.

A better way, if you want to use multiple microphones, would be to get yourself a small mixer and plug all your microphones into the mixer, set the levels so all their outputs are about the same, and plug the output of the mixer into the loop amplifier. That way you are not limited by the number of microphones you have. At the same time, you have also leveled out the differences in volume between the people using the various microphones.

2. The loop amplifier itself will work great—but one room microphone is going to pick up all of the noise and babble in the room, so you are probably not going to be able to effectively hear any given person. With our poor ears, typically we need a microphone right at the speaker’s lips, not a general one in the room picking up all the other sounds. You’d have to experiment to see if a room microphone would work for you in the situation you describe, but I know it won’t work for my ears. If only one person is talking at a time, and he is quite close to the microphone, and there isn’t any background noise, then a room microphone could work quite well—but this is not the situation you are envisioning. It would be much better to have multiple microphones—one clipped to each person’s collar.

You can learn the specifics of the various Univox loop amplifiers here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Williams Sound recently released their brand new bluetooth neckloop called the CM-BT Bluetooth Audio Amplifier. Since Williams Sound makes top quality equipment (they make the PockeTalker for example), I just had to check it out for myself to see if it really had the goods.

The result was, I was impressed!

The CM-BT is not only a quality device, but it has all the features you’ll need for cell phone use and for listening to music.

It includes the standard features of hands free operation, one button answer/hang up, rechargeable battery, etc., etc., but it also has some cool features that are not included in most bluetooth neckloops.

For example, you can unplug the neckloop from the unit. This means that if the neckloop wire should ever break, instead of throwing the whole unit away like you need to do with the other bluetooth neckloops out there, all you need to do is get the replacement neckloop part. That alone could save you a lot of bucks.

Another cool feature is you can use it with the neckloop, or you can use ear buds. In that case, you don’t even need to have hearing aids and t-coils to use it.

When using ear buds you can listen to music in true stereo. (Note: neckloops only let you hear mono sound.) I’ve even figured out a way you can listen to true stereo via your hearing aids and t-coils. All you need to do is plug a pair of Music Links into the earphone jack instead of ear buds. If you are interested, here’s a link to the music links.

If you want to listen to music via ear buds or Music Links, (and don’t want the bluetooth amplifier hanging around your neck), you can unplug the neckloop and clip the bluetooth amplifier to your belt or pocket via its built-in belt clip.

Depending on the kind of hearing loss you have, you can switch the incoming sound to have high-frequency emphasis or low-frequency emphasis. In practical terms, since most hard of hearing people have a high-frequency loss, speech will sound better in the “HI” position and music will sound better in the “LO” position.

Recharging this unit couldn’t be simpler—just drop it into the charger—no fiddling with batteries or plugging a charger cable in.

Those are just some of its cool features. There are lots of other features to the CM-BT. To learn more about the CM-BT Bluetooth Audio Amplifier, or to get one for yourself, click here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

An audiologist explained:

 I have a client who needs to use a neckloop at work, but his multi-line work phone is over 15 years old and doesn’t have a jack for his neckloop. Any suggestions?

You bet. I’m assuming that your client is using a passive neckloop such as the Williams Sound neckloop?

There may be other solutions, but this one will work with almost any desk phone (analog or digital) as long as it has a handset cord that unplugs from the phone base.

To make this solution work, you need two other pieces of equipment. First, you need a Mini-recorder control from Radio Shack (part no. 43-1237) which costs $19.99.

You unplug the handset cord from the base of the phone, and plug the mini-recorder control phone cord into the phone base instead. Then you plug the phone handset cord into the jack on the mini-recorder control. Set the switch on the mini-recorder control to “REC”. Now the phone is back to “normal” and can be used normally, but has the mini-recorder in-line ready for instant use as desired.

Second, you need a personal amplifier such as the PockeTalker. Plug the mini-recorder control’s 1/8″ plug into the MIC jack of the PockeTalker and the neckloop into the EAR jack.

Now, whenever you want to make or receive a phone call, you simply put the neckloop over your head, switch your hearing aids to t-coil mode, turn the PockeTalker on and set the volume to a comfortable level and lift the receiver.

You hear via your t-coils and neckloop. Thus you don’t have to hold the phone’s receiver up to your ear, but you do have to speak into the mouthpiece.

A good thing about this gizmo combination is that it uses standard parts. Thus it will work with almost any desk phone (digital or analog) as long as the handset cord can be unplugged from the base (really old phones don’t have this). Furthermore, since this gizmo combination is light and portable so you can use it almost any place when you need to hear on a phone. Cool, huh?

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

My hearing is not what it used to be. I don’t use hearing aids or anything else now. I have an Ameriphone XL-40 amplified desk phone. I’m looking for a way to make it hands free [headset with microphone] at a reasonable price. Any ideas?

I was once in your position. I had looked high and low for a hands-free binaural amplified headset that I could use with a landline (amplified) phone. The problem was, even the best headsets made by well-known companies had far less amplification than I needed. Connecting them to an amplified phone didn’t help as the headset amplifier limited the maximum volume to some (to me) low level (presumably to protect peoples ears, but that made them totally useless to people with severe hearing losses).

Therefore, I was delighted when I discovered an amplified headset that didn’t limit the maximum volume. This unit contains a binaural headset so both ears can hear, (This gives you much better comprehension at a lower volume, which helps save your hearing.), a boom microphone and a 45 dB gain in-line amplifier.

The in-line amplifier connects between the phone base and handset/headset. I LOVE mine. I use it in conjunction with my Clarity XL-50 amplified phone (the big brother of your amplified phone). I now have enough volume to “blow my brains out” if I operated them at full volume! Mind you, I have a pretty severe hearing loss so I need lots of amplification.

This in-line amplifier/headset combination is not exactly cheap, but it works wonderfully well for me so it is definitely worth the price. It will work with almost any landline phone (except those with the buttons in the handset) whether amplified or not. If you don’t need high power like I do, you may find it works well for you with just a regular desk phone.

You can see this wonderful binaural amplified headset here and the amplified phone I use it.

See what you think. This sounds like the kind of thing you were looking for.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady explained:

I have severe hearing loss and am looking for an assistive device that might help me in meetings and conferences, especially when I am the presenter. I’ve really cut back on doing these things because I can’t hear the speaker, or when I’m presenting—those in the audience who want to ask me a question.

I’ve seen your directional microphone and wonder about its effectiveness in these situations. Also, how does it transmit sound? I have hearing aids which have t-coils. Is the mic wireless? Do I need to use a neck loop and my PockeTalker? Thanks for any information you can give me.

I understand your situation well. I’m in the same boat—I have a severe hearing loss, can’t hear in meetings, nor hear the questions from the audience when I am the speaker.

The good news is that there are many things you can do to help yourself hear better in these situations.

1. You Are in the Audience

When you are in the audience and there is one main speaker, I’d use an FM system. Give the FM microphone/transmitter to the speaker. I usually ask him ahead of time and actually clip the lapel mic where I want it on him and tell him to put the transmitter on his belt or in a pocket. Then you will hear the speaker wonderfully well.

Alternately, you could tape the FM transmitter’s lapel mic to the lectern microphone (not to the lectern itself) and let the transmitter hang down in front of the lectern. Don’t put microphones and transmitters on the lectern itself. If you do this, you are being inconsiderate of the speaker’s needs. The speaker needs space for his papers and props, and lectern space is typically at a premium.

If you are sitting in the front row or two, and the speaker isn’t on a big platform (and thus quite a ways from you), use your PockeTalker and the super directional microphone. You have to be careful to aim this microphone at the speaker’s face. Because it is so directional, if you get sloppy in your aim, the sound quality and volume will rapidly drop off.

To use the directional microphone with your PockeTalker, you just plug it into the PockeTalker’s microphone jack, plug your neckloop in the earphone jack and turn on your t-coils if you are wearing your hearing aids. If you are not wearing hearing aids, or don’t have t-coils in your hearing aids, plug in a set of earbuds instead of the neckloop.

2. You Are the Speaker

When you are the speaker and you want to hear questions/comments from your audience, if the person is not too far from you, you can use your PockeTalker with the directional microphone plugged in and aim it at whomever is asking a question. I’ve found I really have to crank up the volume on the PockeTalker if the person is at any distance from me. The directional microphone works well for people within 20 feet or so of you.

Note: The PockeTalker’s microphone sensitivity is related to the volume setting. Thus, if you have the volume turned down, the microphone sensitivity is also down. As a result the microphone won’t pick up from as far away as it will when the volume is turned up.

In addition to amplification, there are many other techniques you can (and should) use when you are the speaker and can’t hear a person asking you a question. Here are some of the strategies I employ, depending on the situation.

• If there is real-time captioning, I just turn around and read the question off the screen. (If I am really lucky, the organizers will have placed a monitor on the lectern so I can read the questions directly from it.)

• I might walk down the aisle to get closer to the person. (This works well in smaller audiences and when you are not standing on a platform.)

• I might ask people to write their questions down and pass them up so I can read them. (This way I don’t have to strain to hear—I just have to strain to read people’s writing!)

• I might ask someone in the front row, whom I already know I can hear, to repeat any questions I can’t hear for me, or maybe just the key words I am missing.

• I might ask the person to come up to the lectern and talk face to face with me where I can hear and/or speechread him better.

• I might have a hearing person stand beside me during question period to repeat the questions so I can hear them.

• And of course, I am always speechreading people so often I can “get” the question even when I don’t hear much of it.

Notice I didn’t mention having a roving microphone and someone handing it to the person asking the question. The reason I don’t do this is because I find that I still can’t hear. (I seldom can even tell if the PA system is on or not, let alone hear and understand what a person is saying.) The rest of the audience may hear the question better with a roving microphone, but typically not me—unless there is a room loop system installed and the roving microphone is connected to it in some way. Then I can flip my t-coils on and hear quite well.

Another thing I could do, but haven’t done so to this point, is to use my FM microphone/transmitter as the roving microphone for people to speak into. That way, using the FM receiver and neckloop, I’d have their voices piped directly into my hearing aids. I should try this sometime when the conditions warrant it.

As you can see, there are ever so many things you can do in order to help yourself hear/understand the questions. If one thing doesn’t work for you, there are lots more things to try. You just need to be comfortable with your hearing loss so you are not embarrassed by it and thus are willing to do what you need to do in order to hear.

Here are links to the devices mentioned above. You can see the PockeTalker here, and the super directional microphone I use further down the same page and my favorite neckloop two pictures above the microphone.

The FM system I use is the older version of the Motiva FM System. Note: If you get this particular Motiva FM System, the receiver then doubles as a PockeTalker so you don’t need to purchase a separate PockeTalker.

P.S. This FM System and PockeTalker seem to last forever. Mine are about 10 years old and still going strong.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A chaplain to seniors asked:

Do you know where I can get a doorbell type device that can activate a vibrator worn by a fairly deaf senior?

There are a good number of alerting systems available that flash lights and shake beds, but to my knowledge, there are only three systems that have wearable vibrating receivers. Of the three, I can only recommend two, as I found the third very unreliable when I purchased it.

Both of the two I can recommend are made by Silent Call. The legacy system uses a vibrating pager you typically wear on your belt. When the doorbell (or any of the other alerting devices that are available) goes off, it vibrates and a light comes on to let you know which device is trying to alert you.

The newer system uses a vibrating wristwatch instead of a pager. I am wearing this vibrating wristwatch as I type this. I love it! Besides vibrating, it shows an icon on the watch face. For example, when the doorbell goes off, it shows a “door” icon at the same time.

Both of these systems are flexible. Besides alerting you to the doorbell, they can alert you to the phone, your alarm clock, to smoke detectors, CO detectors, sound monitors, fire alarms, window and door burglar alarms, weather radios, etc.

When you are in bed you can put them in their charger/docking stations and with bed vibrators plugged into the docking units, they will alert you while you are asleep too.

You can start with a basic system and add to it whenever you want. For example, you can start with just one transmitter (e.g. doorbell) and one receiver (e.g. pager or watch depending on the system) and if you want to, add more transmitter modules as you find the need for them. I use the doorbell, telephone, smoke detector, fire alarm, CO detector, and sound monitor modules at present, although I also have the weather radio module as well.

You can learn about (and purchase) the newer Signature Series modules (wristwatch series) here, and the older legacy series (pager series) here.

Besides the body-worn receivers, both series also have bed table (and other) receivers that flash lights and have bed vibrators. I use them too. I love how flexible these systems are. I have tailored them to fit my exact needs. I’m sure you will find they will do the same for you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. with Dana Mulvany

A lady explained:

My cell phone contract is nearing its end, and I am looking at other carriers—trying to find a better phone for me. I’ve had several cell phones over the years, but have never had one that I was comfortable with except when making calls myself. Which is the best cell phone for hard of hearing people?

My friend, Dana Mulvany, herself hard of hearing, and like me, an expert in hearing assistive technology including phones explains:

There are actually quite a few issues you may want to consider when purchasing a cell phone. Some of these include:

• The audio quality of voice transmissions. It is important to assess how well your voice comes across on the phone in addition to how well you can hear on the phone. Unfortunately, some phones do a poor job transmitting all the frequencies people need in order to hear speech as well as possible. This is particularly important if the person you are talking with is also hard of hearing.
• The volume of the phone. Is the maximum volume enough so that you can hear people well?
• The M and T rating. Ideally, you want a phone that is rated M4/T4. This gives your hearing aids the greatest immunity from interference from the phone in both voice and t-coil modes.
• The availability of a 2.5 mm jack (for accessories such as a neckloop or T-links).
• Whether you are effectively alerted to the phone ringing. Is the ring tone audible to you. Is the vibration strong enough?
• Whether you can be alerted effectively to call waiting, text messages, etc.
• Whether or not Web CapTel will work on the phone
• Whether the phone will support Mobile CapTel (both voice and Web CapTel at the same time).
• Compatibility of the phone’s Bluetooth feature with hearing aid compatible accessories such as bluetooth neckloops.
• Access to text messaging.
• Ease of use of texting.
• Access to email.
• Access to web sites.
• The cost of voice and data plans.
• Video capabilities (in the future) for people who use sign language or lip reading.
• The availability of mobile TV with captioning (in the future).

No phones come with all the above features. You need to decide which features are important to you and get the phone that best meets your needs..

Is there one perfect phone for us? I’m afraid not at this time!

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

I have mild to moderate hearing loss, bilateral tinnitus and some hyperacusis. There’s no rhyme or reason to the hyperacusis. Some days it’s stable and other days it gets worse. Likewise with my hearing loss—it fluctuates—sometimes in the morning I feel I can hear fine and after a busy day at work or home life, I feel cotton got into my ears and my hearing is worse at night as well as the tinnitus—like I used my ears to much during the day. That type of feeling.

My problem is what can I do about telephone use. It seems that whenever I talk on the phone my tinnitus gets worse after I hang up. I started using my cell phone with the speaker, so my ear is not against the phone itself. But it still increases the level of my tinnitus after the phone call.

This is baffling me because I really enjoy speaking with people, but now I cut my calls short for fear of the intensity of the tinnitus later on. I wish there was some solution for phone use. I think that my response is hyperacusis after using the phone.

Is there any solution to this, or do I just suffer with it? I am trying to protect my hearing. I have nerve damage and this close noise bothers it. Recovery usually takes a few hours back to the same level.

You are not alone in this. My tinnitus gets worse from using the phone too. I wonder if your problem is the same as mine.

Incidentally, I think you have recruitment rather than hyperacusis.

For me, the louder parts (spikes) of each syllable are too loud and cause my recruitment to kick in, which aggravates my tinnitus. However, if I turn down the volume so these spikes do not recruit (and aggravate my tinnitus), then I can’t hear the softer parts of the syllables and thus don’t understand what the person on the other end is saying. It’s sort of a Catch-22 situation.

That is part of the problem. In addition, I need enormous amplification in order to hear the other person (I have an 80 dB loss right where our voices are pitched). Since the phone’s side tone amplifies my own voice even more than the other person’s voice, my voice in the handset is then much too loud for me. However, if I turn down the volume, then I can’t hear the other person, and if I speak softer, the other person can’t hear me. The result is that after talking on the phone for a while (and I often am on the phone for an hour or more at a time), my tinnitus is louder for 10 or 15 minutes after I hang up.

The obvious solution to this problem is to wear hearing aids that have their compression set such that no louder sounds can reach your recruitment threshold. Then, since no sounds will recruit, it won’t aggravate your tinnitus. (At least, that’s my theory.) The compression not only keeps the lid on the louder sounds, but at the same time, it increases the volume of the softer parts of speech so you can hear and understand the other person.

Since I don’t like wearing my hearing aids for phone use (never have, but that’s me), part of my solution was to get a binaural headset so both ears can hear at once. The advantage of hearing with both ears at the same time is that you can cut the volume in half and still understand the other person as well as before with one ear and twice the volume. By cutting down the volume, my own voice isn’t as loud and thus much easier on my ears (which is a blessing). It’s not the perfect answer, but is much, much better than before.

You can get this binaural advantage by wearing two hearing aids in t-coil mode and plug a neckloop (amplified or bluetooth) or T-links into your cell or landline phone. Then you can turn the volume down and yet still hear clearly since both ears are working together now. If you have the Oticon Epoq or Phonak Exelia (or equivalent) hearing aids with their remotes, you can use bluetooth phones and the sound will be piped into both your hearing aids automatically.

In summary, wearing two hearing aids with sufficient compression to control your recruitment would be the best solution to prevent your recruitment from kicking in and aggravating your tinnitus while on the phone (or anywhere else for that matter). Second best is to do what I do and wear a binaural headset. The wonderful binaural headset I use (for landline phones only) is found here.