| A: |
Difficulty with television is one of the most common complaints of people with hearing loss. Some of the reasons are:
• televised speech is often twice as fast as normal conversation, making it much more difficult to understand
• televisions have small speakers and the sound quality may not be ideal. Some people understand televised speech better when they turn off the “stereo” setting
• interfering noise can come from the television program itself (including background music) and from the viewer’s home.
There are several ways you can hear the TV better, with either closed captioning or augmentative systems:
• Closed Captioning: allows you to see written text displayed on the screen. It’s turned on by using the menu button on your TV remote.
• Augmentative Systems: transmits sound directly to the viewer. They allow the viewer to listen at whatever volume desired, without being affected by room noise. These systems include direct loop, infrared, and wireless Bluetooth. With direct loop, a thin wire is connected to the TV set and placed around the room. The hearing aid wearer puts his or her hearing aid setting on “T” (telecoil) and the TV sound is received directly at the hearing aids. With Infrared, the TV sound is converted to light or radio waves and transmitted to the viewer via a lightweight headset. This system is used in many theaters. Bluetooth is a recent development in hearing aids. An adapter wirelessly transmits sound from the television to hearing aids that are Bluetooth enabled. |
