Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others

Hello. Not sure if this is where I do this, but I just joined to get some information for my mom, who experienced profound hearing loss from her chemo treatment. I am specifically hoping for cell phone recommendations, ie ones that have good clarity, amplification, background noise reduction, anything that makes it easier for her to hear. We tried connecting her hearing aids to her phone, but she found it too overwhelming. At some point, perhaps we will revisit that option, but for now, we are just wondering which mainstream cells phones have you found to be the clearest for hearing? Thanks in advance.

Janice

Hi Janice. Cell phones have an accessibility rating. Ask the sales person if the rating is not shown. There are two letters, M and T, and range from 1 to 4. The M stands for Microphone, which is how well the cell phone works with the hearing aid microphone. The T stands for telecoil, which is how well the cell phone works with the hearing aid telecoil. If you don't know what a telecoil is, hang on, I'll get to it. The ratings, 1 to 4, is a measure of quality (1 is the worst, and 4 is the best). So, the best cell phones have an M4 T4 rating. A rating of M3 T3 is very good too but do not choose a phone below a 3 rating. Stick with M4 T4, M4 T3, M3 T4, or M3 T3. Your moms hearing aids may or may not have a telecoil. The audiologist would have to enable it if they do have them. The telecoil allows the audio from the phone to be inductively coupled to the hearing aid instead of via an audible signal. The telecoil would give a better sound than an audible sound. Mom would have to remember to turn on the telecoil program if she wanted to listen to the phone in this manner. The best way to get the sound to the hearing aid would be via Bluetooth. She would hear through both ears instead of just the ear that the phone was held up to. Many people that have hearing loss use the speakerphone option to hear via both ears if Bluetooth is not an option. I would recommend trying several phones that have at least a M3 T3 and let her try them before deciding which phone works best for her. Before my Bluetooth hearing aids, I had a Casio flip phone. I went to the Verizon store to try different phones and the Casio worked best for me. I doubt that phone is even made anymore.
Tony in Michigan

Hi, I'm Jim. Will reach full retirement age soon. I guess in baseball terms, you could say 2020 will be my 'walk year.' Got my first hearing aid at age 6. That's no typo. First grade, 6 years old, fitted with a body-aid, strapped to my chest.

My hearing deteriorated during my school years. Currently my left ear is profound and my right slides moderate to severe. I've come to accept hearing loss as part of my being. It is deeply ingrained into my identity and personality.

Whether emotions run high or low, this has been an amazing experience of empathy!

Welcome Jim, this is a great place to learn from others even though you already have lots of experience with hearing loss. And good luck with your retirement. I retired in 2000 - and again in 2013 because I didn't get it right the first time. Don't do that to yourself.

Quote from Contentandwell "For me, it was the loss of word recognition that made things the most difficult." That makes a huge difference. Same goes for listening in noise. There seem to be many ways to state or describe the inability to understand speech. Audiograms predict (to a degree) how a person can hear sound, but they are less good at predicting how that will be understood by a hearing impaired individual. Some Audiologists now recognize that many veterans (especially those who have encountered blasts or TBI, traumatic brain injuries) have less ability to understand speech than their audiograms would suggest. So there is obviously more science yet to be understood in auditory precessing.

I retired in 2010. I functioned ok in normal situations but not in meetings. I wore one aid and was deaf in other ear. I functioned ok with aid, lip reading and captioned tv. My hearing got progressively worse the past nine years. Now at 73 my aid basically is for volume. Discrimination is poor. So the audiologist recommends testing for a cochlear implant.

I too have accepted my hearing loss and am reluctant to undergo the trials and tribulations of an implant evaluation, operation and followup. My excuse now is I am waiting for an ease of the massive medical travel commitments necessary.

Hi, @jymm I see you have posted a while ago, but welcome to Connect. My daughter started wearing HAs at age 4 so I understand how it is for children. I was in my 50s when I started wearing HAs. My loss is totally different from my daughter’s. She always just wore regular HAs. She is in her 30s now and her hearing loss is, I believe, classified as moderate.

I too have had to accept my loss, despite the social difficulties it causes. I am severe in one ear and profound in the other with 30% and 50% word recognition. It sounds as if you are doing very well though, which is great. For me, it was the loss of word recognition that made things the most difficult. How is your word recognition? I suspect that loss in me may have been due to either a medication or to having had cirrhosis because it happened very quickly.
JK