Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A wife wrote:

My husband believes that wearing his hearing aids will over the long run increase his hearing loss. I’d appreciate if you could direct me to any information that would address his concern.

That’s a question that a number of people have concerns with. Anything is possible, of course, but the short answer is that typically no, hearing aids won’t damage your hearing. However, if you have a severe or worse loss, there is another side to the story, so keep reading.

Loud sounds damage our ears (either instantly or eventually). That is not open to question. The currently accepted level is that sounds less than 80 dB will not harm your hearing, no matter how long you listen to them.

After that, the louder the sound, and the longer you listen to it, the greater the chances of hearing loss.

Normal human speech lies in the range of 50 to 60 dB. However, when you have a significant hearing loss, you can’t hear at that level any more so you need amplification.

The problem with the older linear analog hearing aids was that they amplified all sounds together. Thus, the softer parts of speech were amplified so you could hear them, but at the same time the louder parts of speech were also amplified and thus became too loud.

Modern digital hearing aids are able to amplify softer sounds, while at the same time, not amplifying so much, or at all, the louder parts of speech so they don’t become loud enough to damage your ears.

That’s the theory. However, in practice, the worse your hearing gets, the louder you need sound in order to hear it comfortably—and that could mean listening to speech at ear-damaging levels.

This is my situation. I have a choice, either hear (and understand) speech and eventually lose more hearing, or not hear and preserve my remaining hearing.

I do both in such a way that I get the best of both worlds. Remember, the longer and louder the sound, the more damaging it is. Thus in order to preserve hearing you can either limit the time you are listening to loud sounds, or you can turn down the volume.

The way I do it is, when I am around people and need to chat with them, I wear my hearing aids at the volume I need in order to hear and understand them. Then, I take my hearing aids off and give my ears a rest. Thus, they are not exposed to loud sounds continuously.

My MCL (most comfortable level) is around 80-85 dB under ideal situations. However, in real life, there are few ideal listening situations so I need more volume.

The trick is to be prudent in wearing your hearing aids. If you are in noisy places, turn them down or take them off and wear ear protectors instead. But in quiet situations, your hearing aids aren’t putting out much volume so there is little chance they will damage your ears, no matter how long you wear them.

Personally, I wear my hearing aids when I want to talk to people and the rest of the time I leave them off and rest my ears. But, then, I enjoy the silence. I don’t have a compulsive need to hear every environmental sound around me. You do what works for you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Room loops (inductive loops) are wonderful to help hard of hearing people hear their TVs and stereos without blasting everyone else out of the room (or house)! However, few people really understand these loop systems. Here are six questions about such loops a man asked me. I think my answers will help you too.

1. “It says the maximum loop size is 80 feet. Is that square feet or linear feet?”

When you are talking about loops there are two ways to measure the room to be looped—the circumference of the room (the length of wire needed to go around the room), or the area of the room (the number of square feet the amplifier must be capable of effectively covering.

The common house-sized amplifier (the Univox 2A) officially covers about 400 square feet. This would require about 80 feet of wire to go around a room 20 ft by 20 ft. In actual fact, in a number of places including my own home, I’ve connected the Univox 2A to 100 feet of wire with no problems (approximately 625 square feet).

2. “How powerful is the signal put out by this amplifier? For example, I’m running this wire in a basement. Would I be able to hear the signal coming from the loop on the floor above, as long as I stay within the looped area laid out below on the corresponding floor?”

Yes, for sure—unless you have a metal floor. For example, I have my loop strung around the floor joists in my basement—and it works on the main floor just as well as if I had put it on the top side of the floor. You should also be able to hear it on the main floor of your house too. In fact, the loop on the ceiling of the basement should cover the basement, the main floor above it, and the upstairs above that too!

With such a loop system, you would be able to freely move around in that area and still hear beautiful clear sound—just as you would if you were sitting in front of your TV.

3. “Would this amplifier work in conjunction with, say, a stereo amplifier to provide more output and thus a longer length of wire?”

No. You see, the power going into the loop is limited by the power output of the loop amplifier, not by the power coming into the amplifier. The input signal from your TV or stereo just needs to be strong enough to drive the loop amplifier. If you want to cover a larger area, you need a bigger loop amplifier such as the Univox PLS-100, 300 or 700. You can learn more about all these loop amplifiers here.

4. “If using a microphone with the unit, do I need a pre-amp to boost the power of the microphone? What kind of microphones are best suited for this unit?”

No, you don’t need a pre amp. Just plug the microphone into the microphone jack on the back of the Univox amplifier.

The microphone jack is a 1/8″ stereo jack—but I think any 1/8″ mono plug will also work just fine. If you want a lapel mic with a longer cord, the MIC 13C  works just great, and its not very expensive either. You can try any mic and see how it works if you already have a mic.

5. “Is this unit only capable of outputting mono signals, thus requiring me to purchase the stereo to mono adapter?”

The patch cord that comes with the Univox 2A loop amplifier has two RCA plugs on it—one each for the left and right stereo channels—but the other end merges the two into one signal. You see, room loops by definition are mono devices (since both hearing aids pick up the same signal) so you normally merge both channels into one. Thus you hear both channels in each ear all “smooshed” together—what I call “dual mono”.

6. “What exactly is the advantage of a double wire loop?”

A double wire loop is not necessary, but it gives you about 15% more power as I understand it. However, since I use 18 gauge lamp cord (and it has two conductors), it doesn’t do my Scottish heart any good to pay for two conductors and then waste one! That’s why I use the double wire loop.

You can learn more about these wonderful loop systems in my article, “Loop Systems—The Best-Kept Secret in Town!“

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

 I have an iPod. Music on the iPod sounds very good to me. The other day I downloaded many tunes from the iTune Store and was excited about being able to listen to all the oldies from the 50’s. I did a lot of listening with ear buds that day. The next day I listened to my down loaded tunes and I was disappointed. Everything had an extra edge to it; hard to describe but sort of like static and raspy. Real speech sounded that way to me as well. My ears felt like they had weights in them. I had more ringing in the ears than usual, the aids felt like ear plugs and I took them out. Ordinarily I don’t feel them in my ears at all. This condition went on for about a week and I was very discouraged. What is going on? Does listening to music with headphones or ear buds for too long bring this on?

You are right—too much of a good thing ends up being a bad thing, especially if you are listening to the music at louder volumes. Sustained louder sounds such as you would experience when listening to music with the volume up causes noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).

In fact you describe 3 of thee classic symptoms of noise-induced hearing loss.

First, you have the “plugged up” feeling. You describe it as your ears feeling “like they had weights in them” and “my hearing aids felt like ear plugs”. This muffled hearing is a sign that you have had the volume too loud for too long. You are now experiencing some degree of temporary hearing loss—what doctors call a temporary threshold shift. This makes everything sound muffled, or as though you are hearing through a fog. The more often you expose your ears to loud sounds, the longer this threshold shift will last, until finally you will be left with further permanent hearing loss.

Second, you have increased tinnitus. As you say, “I had more ringing in my ears than usual.” Any sounds that cause your ears to ring (or your existing ringing to get louder) indicates that you are exposing your ears to damaging levels of sound. This tinnitus is your first warning that the sound is too loud—so you need to immediately turn the volume down and/or give your ears a rest.

Third, you have distorted hearing, which you describe as “everything had an extra edge to it; hard to describe but sort of like static and raspy”.

The good news is that if you give your ears a rest from all loud sounds, often your hearing will go back to normal and the ringing and distortion will disappear too. In this case, it took your ears a whole week. That is quite long. Often it only takes minutes to a few hours. As I said, the more often your ears are exposed to loud sounds, the longer it takes them to recover. I’d be very careful in the future, because one day if you keep on listening to music at that volume and for extended periods, these symptoms will never go away—and you do not want that!

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady asked:

What kinds of things cause excessive ear wax to build up?

I can think of 3 reasons for ear wax build-up.

1. In my book “Ototoxic Drugs Exposed” I list 4 drugs that have the side effect of causing excess ear wax production. If you are taking any of these drugs, that could be the reason for your excessive ear wax. These drugs are Acitretin, Infliximab, Ritonavir and Rofecoxib.

2. For some people, just wearing hearing aids (either in-the-ear hearing aids, or behind-the-ear aids with ear molds can cause your body to really step up the production of ear wax. In addition, hearing aids/ear molds prevent this wax from naturally working its way out, and it fact, push it further down the ear canal.

3. You may be lacking in essential fatty acids (EFAs). People that are deficient in certain essential fatty acids can have either excessive ear wax or dry, flaky ears. Apparently the essential fatty acids help control ear canal inflammation. In this case, it is the inflammation that is responsible for the excessive ear wax.

According to Dr. Andrew Rubman, ND, the director of the, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines in CT, taking one tablespoon of flax oil or 2,000 mg of fish oil daily corrects most EFA deficiencies. (Source: Bottom Line Secrets Newsletter, May 7, 2008.)

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man wrote:

My mother, who is coming to terms with her hearing loss, was told recently by a hearing aid dispenser that her hearing loss would probably continue to get worse with age—losing something like up to 7-8% of her hearing each year. However if she were to get hearing aids—that wearing them regularly would actually slow the progression of her loss to around 1% a year due to the stimulation of the inner ear and other factors. Is there any truth to this claim? Do aids really help to slow down the hearing loss?

I think the salesman was using scare tactics. I’ve never seen those figures mentioned before and I watch out for information like that.

There is some truth to it though. IF your brain doesn’t hear anything, then yes, the auditory pathways “deteriorate” over time. Just as exercise keeps our bodies healthy, so to does hearing things keep our auditory circuits functioning optimally.

However, when we lose some of our hearing, there is typically still enough left that keeps the auditory system working. It’s not as though we live in total silence—we just don’t hear as much as we did before.

Therefore, I think those figures are grossly high. For example, at 8% descending balance, in 10 years according to him, you would only hear 43% as much as you did 10 years previously—and I just don’t buy that.

For example, if that were true, then my right ear—in which I didn’t wear a hearing aid for over 30 years, even thought it had a severe loss, shouldn’t hear anything by now—yet it now hears better than my left ear which is the ear in which I wore a hearing aid! Both ears had the same hearing loss to start with.

Apart from all this, it is well-known that the average person loses more and more (mostly high-frequency) hearing with increasing age. (The salesman was right there.) This has nothing to do with wearing hearing aids or not. Its just a fact of our modern life. So hearing will continue to deteriorate with increasing age, and hearing aids don’t stop it or slow it down significantly from anything I have read.

One report showed that the average person at 4000 Hz has the following degree of hearing loss by decade:

Age   Loss

10s     0 db
20s   15 dB
30s   20 dB
40s   30 dB
50s   40 dB
60s   45 dB
70s   60 dB
80s   60 dB
90s   80 dB

As you can see, age is the big factor in how well we hear, not whether we wear hearing aids or not.

What hearing aids do is let us hear better in spite of our increasing hearing losses with aging. So it is to your mom’s advantage to wear hearing aids so she can communicate more easily in spite of losing more hearing each year due to aging, not to try to preserve her existing hearing.

Incidentally, when considering hearing aids, my policy is to get strong enough ones so that you only run them at about half power. That way, as your hearing gets worse, you have plenty of reserve power to compensate for it—otherwise you’ll have to buy new hearing aids every couple of years—and that gets expensive.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I am a 30 year old female who received my first hearing aid at 8 years old. I had a stapedectomy at age 17. I was told I had congenital fixation of my stapes and bilateral vestibular aqueduct syndrome and some nerve damage. I have a combination of sensorineural and conductive hearing loss. My hearing was pretty stable until pregnancy at which point we have noticed a pattern where during pregnancy it gets worse, then it gets a little better after pregnancy but does not return to the way it was before pregnancy. (There have been four pregnancies). I am wondering if there are any options for me in terms of restoring my hearing, or if I should not have any more children. Is there a possibility that birth control will also affect my hearing? At this point my hearing loss is becoming hard to handle, despite two top of the line hearing aids.

From what you have said, it appears that you have two conditions that can cause hearing loss.

First, you appear to have otosclerosis. The stapedectomy was to try to fix it. Interestingly enough, otosclerosis often first shows up at puberty (hence your need for a stapedectomy at 17), then worsens with each pregnancy (as you have found so far) and has one final crack at the cat at menopause.

Second, it appears you also have Large Vestibular Aqueduct Syndrome (LVAS). I assume by “bilateral vestibular aqueduct syndrome” you really mean large (or enlarged) vestibular aqueduct syndrome (LVAS/EVAS). With LVAS you can lose hearing from atmospheric and other pressure changes. In your case, straining during childbirth could have caused a drop in hearing. Sometimes the hearing comes back, or  partially comes back, in a couple of weeks or so. Again, this might have happened in your case as well although I have never heard of a person having both otosclerosis and LVAS.

Typically, the otosclerosis causes a conductive hearing loss, while LVAS causes a sensorineural hearing loss.

Now to answer your real questions—whether there are any options for you in terms of restoring your hearing, and whether you should have any more children or not.

Often otosclerosis can be helped by surgery (stapedectomy). Sometimes bone eventually overgrows the prosthesis so another surgery may be necessary. I’d talk it over with your ear specialist and see whether having more surgery would likely help restore the conductive component of your hearing.

As for the sensorineural component of your hearing, there is nothing medically doctors can do for you.

On the question of having more children, that is up to you of course. My viewpoint is have as many children as you want in spite of losing more hearing with each pregnancy. You already know that you can cope—not that it is easy—but you can do it.

You also asked, “Is there a possibility that birth control pills will also affect my hearing?”

Good thing you asked this question as it appears not many people seem to know the answer. Any birth control pills containing Estradiol, or any HRT (hormone replacement therapy) pills containing Estriol can definitely harm your hearing if you have otosclerosis. In my book, “Ototoxic Drugs Exposed” I have this warning for both of these drugs. It reads: “Warning—if you have otosclerosis you should not use Estradiol/Estriol if you have a worsening of your otosclerosis, or if your otosclerosis deteriorates during pregnancy as you may experience a further drop in your hearing. If you do decide to take Estradiol/Estriol and have otosclerosis, you should be under close medical supervision. Furthermore, you should weigh the long term benefits against the risks to your hearing.”

Since your hearing loss is “becoming hard to handle, despite two top of the line hearing aids” you may want to investigate whether you are eligible for cochlear implants. They will bypass both your middle ear and inner ear and their various problems. I see that as a viable option for you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I am suffering severe balance problems, hearing loss and tinnitus since stopping Paxil 3 years ago. I never had tinnitus, hearing loss, or balance problems before I stopped taking the Paxil. In fact, I did not have any of these symptoms until about 3 months after I stopped taking Paxil. I was on Paxil for 8 years. At the end, I tapered from 20mg over 3 months as directed by my doctor. I have not taken any other drugs apart from the occasional Paracetamol [Acetaminophen]. Do you know if this is likely to be permanent?

Paxil (Paroxetine) belongs to the class of drugs called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs). Paroxetine can cause a number of different ototoxic side effects including hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis (normal sounds are too loud), ear pain and a number of balance problems such as ataxia (staggering gait), dizziness, nystagmus (eyes jerking sideways) and vertigo.

Most people experience these side effects while they are taking the drug, not 3 months after they stop taking it such as happened in your case. This kind of thing can happen with drugs in the Benzodiazepine class, but I wasn’t aware of this characteristic with SSRIs. Perhaps the SSRIs can act similarly to the Benzodiazepine drugs when you have taken them for a long time, such as you have.

This just goes to show that short term studies (a few weeks to a few months) by the drug manufacturers before the drug is approved by the FDA do not catch many/all the side effects caused by extended use.

Now to answer your question—typically, if your hearing doesn’t come back (at least in part) in 30 days or so, the chances of it ever coming back are quite slim. In your case, it has been over 3 years now. Thus, I think your hearing loss is permanent. Also, since tinnitus often accompanies hearing loss, I expect your tinnitus will be permanent too.

I’m a bit surprised that your balance problems haven’t improved. You see, balance problems often appear to improve with time as your brain learns to compensate for the faulty balance signals coming from your inner ears. However, that does not mean the balance system in your ears is fixing itself. Rather, your brain is learning to tune out the bad balance signals from your ears, and is relying on your eyes and proprioceptive system for balance information.

If any reader has had a similar experience when using SSRIs, I’d love to hear your story.

If you want to check out the ototoxic side effects of the drugs you are taking (or thinking of taking), look them up in “Ototoxic Drugs Exposed“. This book contains information on the ototoxicity of 743 drugs known to damage ears (and information on 148 ototoxic chemicals too).

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

Could you tell me where I could purchase the “Please face me, I lip-read” buttons?

I don’t know of any commercial enterprise that sells these buttons. However, I do know some HLAA groups make them for their own people, for example HLAA of Washington state does.

Now for the good news. The Ear Technology Corporation, makers of the wonderful Dry & Store systems for removing moisture from hearing aids and cochlear implants, gives them away free.

Their yellow buttons are 2 1/4″ in diameter and say in bold black letters “Please”, then in smaller letters on the next line “I hear you better when you” and then in bold black letters again on the third line “Face Me”. At the bottom in smaller letters is the Dry & Store contact information.

More good news. You can get as many buttons as you need for yourself, family, friends or hearing loss group or organization.

All you have to do is go to the Dry & Store website and click on either the small button on the left, or the big yellow button on the right, and it will take you to the “order” page. Fill out the form and click on the submit button at the bottom. That is all there is to it. Soon your buttons will be hurrying on their way to you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

While staying at a motel last week I ran into a potentially hazardous situation involving my hearing loss. Though the problem could have been avoided, late deafened adults like me who function moderately well with hearing aids, though profoundly deaf without them, are not likely to anticipate it until a dangerous or costly event like this occurs.

My partner left for the morning to attend an event she had come for while I remained at the motel with my lap top, the morning papers and a good book. She expected to return about noon. I dozed off at mid morning and removed my hearing aids to avoid feedback problems. Waking after a half hour, I did not put my hearing aids back on since there was no one there, and I intended to just read and work on the day’s crossword puzzle.

Around noon I thought I heard noises at the door. Assuming it might be the maid wanting to clean the room, I unbolted the door to see what they wanted. It was my partner and the maid, both pounding frantically on the door as they had been for the past half hour. Neither my partner’s electronic key nor the maid’s master key could open the door while the bolt was on. They had also tried calling on the house phone, but it was not loud enough to attract my attention even though I was sitting right next to it.

The management said the only other alternative was to call the fire department and either cut through the door or break in through the window. Fearing that I might have had a heart attack or a stroke, that was under serious consideration if their last attempt at knocking was unsuccessful. Apparently, once the deadbolt is closed, there is absolutely no way anyone can gain access to a hotel room except by breaking in. All normal means of communication are auditory and useless if the person is profoundly deaf.

Obviously, I could have avoided the situation with a little forethought, but since I have moderately good hearing with my hearing aids on, I never anticipated or envisioned the problem. Late deafened adults should be warned about the potentially dangerous or costly result of locking themselves into secure rooms and areas without hearing aids or a way for others to reach them.

You’ve made your point quite forcefully. Now the question is, “What can you do to prevent this in the future?” Obviously, you don’t want to compromise your security by leaving your door unbolted, but you need ways to be alerted if people are at the door.

Fortunately, there is a good solution, at least if you live here in the USA, and that is to ask for an “ADA kit”. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that hotels and motels provide alerting and communications devices for hard of hearing people. All you have to do when you check in (or even better, when you make your reservations) is ask for the ADA kit.

Getting the kit is only the first step. As one lady asked, “What should be in an ADA kit, and what do I do with it once I have it in my hands?”

Excellent questions. For hard of hearing people the ADA kit should contain the following:

1. A telephone amplifier. Typically this is an inline amplifier that plugs into the base of the phone in place of the handset cord, and the handset cord plugs into the amplifier. A good amplifier for this purpose is the HA-40 by Clarity/Ameriphone. (This amplifier also works well at home or when visiting friends. You can see this amplifier here.)

2. A bed table alerting console. This unit typically is a wireless receiver for the various modules (more about them later), and includes an alarm clock. You plug the bed-side lamp into the back of this unit. You also plug in a bed shaker (vibrator) and put it under your pillow or mattress. When any alerting device goes off, the bed-side lamp flashes and the bed shaker vibrates. A system that is often used is the Ameriphone AlertMaster AM-6000 or one of its derivations. It has several indicator lights on it so you know which device has activated such as the alarm clock, doorbell, phone, room sound sensor, etc.

You also plug the phone into the back of this unit, and plug the unit into the phone jack with the supplied phone patch cord in order to be alerted when the phone rings.

3. A doorbell/door knocker. You need an alerting device if someone is at the door. There are two devices that are good and one that is almost useless. Let’s look at the good ones first. Either you have a wireless doorbell that fits on a bracket that slides over the edge of the door (so it can’t be removed when the door is closed) or a wireless door knocker sensor that also fits on a similar bracket.

When someone presses the doorbell or knocks on the door, a wireless signal is sent to the bedside receiver which activates. Besides the lamp flashing and the bed shaking, you can see an indicator lamp on the receiver telling you which device is going off (in this case it shows “Door“).

The almost useless door knocker device is a battery operated light. The unit activates properly when someone knocks, but the light is so weak that you have to be looking right at it to see it blinking. If you are laying on the bed, you can’t see it at all, as typically the corner of the bathroom blocks you from seeing
the door.

4. A smoke detector alarm. Unfortunately, this is where most ADA kits fall down. They usually give you a useless strobe light affair that about all you can do is lay it on top of the TV—and it will flash the strobe light when the smoke gets down to that level—and that is almost too late.

The smoke detector alert needs to be somehow tied into the house system so even if a smoke detector in another unit goes off, it alerts you too. What I do as a reasonable work-around if my ADA kit includes the AlertMaster AM-6000 or equivalent is set the “Mic” switch to “on”. This “Mic” is really a room sound sensor. When the installed house smoke detector goes off, the racket is enough to set this alert off too. (It only activates if there is a sustained sound for at least 12 seconds.) This way I get the “early warning” advantage that all hearing people get.

Note: It is important that you check that there are good batteries in all of these devices or they will be totally useless to you in an emergency.

Caution: make sure you do not plug any alerting devices into an electrical outlet that is controlled by a wall switch. If you do and inadvertently turn the switch off, there goes your alerting device too.

Another caution: In some rooms I’ve been in, there weren’t enough electrical outlets to plug in all the devices I needed, so you would be wise to carry a spare power bar or plug extender so you have more outlets available. You may even need an extension cord.

And still another caution: Sometimes the plugs are screwed down so you can’t unplug them (so people don’t steal the bed lamps, alarm clocks, etc.). The problem is that you need to plug the bed lamp into the AlertMaster. Thus you need a screwdriver with you too (both slot and Phillips—you never know what you will need).

The above are good reasons why you should get the hotel maintenance man to come and set everything up for you. That way they get to understand the problems and how to fix them for you. (Often I have to teach the maintenance man how to set up the system properly. And just as often, they have to run out to the store and buy some fresh batteries!)

Some ADA kits are very deficient and only do lip service (so to speak) even assuming all the pieces are there—and often some are missing. Often I have to “raid” 2 or 3 ADA kits just to get the parts to make up one working kit. I make sure I complain about this so the management knows they need to “smarten up”.

When you are staying in hotels and motels, get and use an ADA kit. The life you save may be your own—and that’s definitely worth it!

by David Myers, Ph.D.

Here are a dozen advantages of loop systems. They . . .

• Are hearing aid compatible. This also means there’s no need when at worship to juggle between hearing aids out/headset on (during sermons) and hearing aids in/headset off (during singing).
   
• Can harness, at no added expense to the hearing aid wearer, the same telecoil technology used by hearing aid compatible telephones.
   
• Require (for those with telecoils) no pickup and remembering to return portable receiving units and headsets.
   
• Require purchasing/maintaining/replacing fewer portable receiving units (for those as yet without telecoils or heading aids).
   
• Operate on a universal frequency (FM systems operate on differing frequencies, requiring receivers for each venue).
   
• Serve those with most new cochlear implants (which come with telecoils) as well as those with hearing aids (especially those most needing assistive listening, who generally have behind-the-ear aids, which generally include strong telecoils).
   
• Are inconspicuous. Loop systems offer an easy and invisible solution to an invisible problem, thus are much more likely to be used.
   
• Work in transient situations. They can serve the hard of hearing at ticket counters, teller windows, airport gate areas, train stations, etc.—venues where other assistive listening systems are impractical.
   
• Contain sound. Because sound broadcast through hearing aids is contained within one’s ear, there is no risk of leaked headset sound bothering others nearby.
   
• Afford flexible use. Can allow either direct listening or loop broadcast modes, or both. Also typically allow M/T (mic + telecoil) settings to allow both assistive listening from PA system or TV and normal listening of conversation or singing from people nearby.
   
• Deliver personalized in-the-ear-sound—sound customized by one’s own hearing aids to address one’s own hearing loss.
   
• Are, for all these reasons, much more likely to be used—and to be increasingly used, once installed (as people purchase future aids with T-coils). (1)

To learn more about these wonderful loop systems, read the article, “Loop Systems—The Best-Kept Secret in Town“.

(1) Used by permission http://www.puredirectsound.com/id11.html