Serving Patients in San Mateo, CA
Assistive Listening Devices
Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are accessories or systems used with hearing instruments or cochlear implants that can help you function more easily in day to day communication situations. They can allow you to connect to audio sources like MP3 players, assisting with talking on the telephone or helping you become more aware of your surroundings.
Many types of ALDs available to enhance your listening experience include:
Alerting and Safety:
A hearing and alerting system that provides awareness of household alerts, including telephone, doorbell and smoke alarms. This is provided through visual and vibration cues through a remote control and also by beep signals sent directly to the hearing aids.
These can be used to ensure comfortable listening levels of the television for all family members. The base of the device connects to your TV with one cable and wirelessly sends audio to the streamer worn around your neck. The streamer receives the audio from your TV and sends it wireless directly to your hearing devices. You then have full control over how loud or soft you would like to listen to the television without having to turn up the volume for everyone else.
These are personal wireless microphone systems that enable you to hear your friend or family member more easily in challenging listening environments, even when they are more than a few feet away. The speaker clips the microphone directly to the collar of their clothing and the speech is sent wirelessly to your hearing instruments, thus avoiding the degrading effects of noise and distance on speech understanding.
These devices stream phone calls and audio from any Bluetooth enabled phone straight to your hearing aids. So you and the person you’re talking to can enjoy comfortable conversations, even in noisy places.
We at Hearing Resource Center of San Mateo can offer you advice on which accessories will work best for your specific listening needs and hearing loss.
These enable speech to be transmitted from a microphone to a hearing aid with the use of the hearing aid’s telecoil. Telecoils are normally in hearing devices to enhance phone listening with all landline phones as well as more and more on cell phones. They also double hearing aid functionality by enabling the instrument to serve as a customized, wireless loudspeaker. This allows
hearing device users to hear better at conferences, playhouses and worship services, even in the presence of background noise. A teleloop system can also be used in your home so that the user can hear the sound from their television and/or stereo system directly in their hearing aids. This makes it possible for you to turn up the volume of the TV through your hearing devices without having to worry about disturbing the rest of your household or neighbors.
The teleloop system itself consists of an amplifier attached to a wire and a sound source like the television, stereo or speaker’s microphone. There are many options for installing the teleloop wire around the room, including under the edge of the carpet, under the house, along the ceiling or in the attic. A typical install takes approximately 1-2 hours.
The installation of one teleloop system is included in the price of your hearing instruments from Hearing Resource Center of San Mateo. Additional rooms may be wired for you at an additional cost.