Remote Microphones
Hearing impairment generally impacts the capacity to hear in noisy surroundings. While hearing aids improve hearing in such conditions, there are instances when extra assistance is required.
Signal-To-Noise Ratio
In a noisy place, it’s difficult to follow conversation because of the poor signal-to-noise ratio. For instance, if you’re trying to have a conversation with your friend in a busy pub, the signal is your friend’s voice and the noise is the mix of other people’s conversations, waiters, bartenders, dishes, kitchen noise, footsteps, restaurant music, traffic outside, etc. That’s a lot of noise and can make hearing really challenging.
When you’re somewhere really quiet, like in your house with one other person, your signal-to-noise ratio will be great! You’ll probably find that situation much better for hearing. You might not even notice that you have hearing loss when you’re in a quiet room.
Signal-to-Noise and Hearing Loss
When you have normal hearing, you can understand speech even when there is a lot of background noise around you. With hearing loss, your required “signal-to-noise ratio” increases. For example, with normal hearing you might be able to hear a conversation when someone is talking at 70 dBA and the background noise is 70 dBA. If you have a moderate signal-to-noise ratio loss, you might only be able to understand conversation at 70 dBA if the noise is lower, perhaps 60 dBA. This means that you require the background noise to be less when you have hearing loss.
What Can You Do About It?
Use Communication Strategies
Do you have any control over the level of background noise around you? Perhaps you can ask the waiter to turn down the volume of the background music. Maybe you could ask to sit in a quieter area of the restaurant.
Use lipreading to your advantage. Make sure that you can clearly see whoever you are talking to and that the lighting is good. Consider taking speechreading classes.
Move closer to your communication partner. The closer you are, the better your signal-to-noise ratio will be, which means the easier the conversation will be.
Use a Remote Microphone With Hearing Aids
A remote microphone is a microphone that pairs up to your hearing aids. You give the device to whoever you want to hear and it will pick up more of their voice instead of the background noise, effectively improving the signal-to-noise ratio and helping you hear better.
Consider listening in this busy cafe, even with a hearing aid. You will hear sounds coming from all directions and need to spend effort and attention hearing the conversation with your friend.
Consider you give your friend a remote microphone to wear. Now their voice will be the most prominent sound, reducing how much effort you need to spend on listening.
Remote microphones are also helpful when you’re having trouble hearing from a distance, such as when watching a lecture or at church.
If you're listening to a presentation, it can be difficult to understand well from a distance.
A remote microphone effectively "reduces" the distance from the speaker to your ear, making it easier to follow the presentation.
If you’re interested in trying a remote microphone, contact us.
Happy listening!