Personal FM systems are like a miniature personalized radio station operating on special FM frequencies assigned by the Federal Communications Commission. The personal FM system consists of a transmitter microphone used by the speaker and a receiver used by you, the listener. The microphone transmits the sound to your hearing aid either through wireless receivers, or telecoil, or through a looped cord worn around your neck. This is ideal for people who are often in excessively noisey environments, and need to clearly understand voices even from a distance.
Infrared systems are often used in the home with TV sets. Sound is transmitted from the TV to a user headset by infrared light waves. The TV is set at a volume comfortable for family members. The infrared system transmits a clearly audible signal to your headset, which you can adjust to your desired volume for more enjoyment of your TV.
Aural Rehabilitation When it comes to dealing with hearing loss, hearing aids are the first and possibly most critical step. After aids are fit, aural rehabilitation (audiologic rehabilitation), is an important step towards better hearing and understanding. It focuses on reducing difficulties related to hearing loss by improving audibility with aids, developing good coping and listening skills and teaching correct use of hearing aids and ALDs when needed. Topics include:
Learning to listen again. Even if you don' t have hearing aids, but have discovered that you have difficulty understanding voices, hearing rehabilitation services can give you strategies to improve listening and increase your communication effectiveness. When you get new hearing aids, your world will be full of sounds you have forgotten over time. You will be re-adapting from what has become a quiet world back to the normally noisy world where we all live.
Using visual clues. Everyone uses their eyes to get clues about what people are saying, their mood, their interest in the topic of conversation. Formal instruction in how speech sounds are made, which sounds look alike on the lips, and how words with the same mouth movement have different meaning, can be incredibly useful in increasing your understanding of conversations. One research lab documented that taking a class in effective use of visual clues can improve hearing aid users’ conversational understanding skills by as much as 20%.
Tip: If your hearing care provider does not offer Assistive Listening Devices and Aural Rehabilitation Services as part of their protocol, you may not get optimal results.
