Is your loss of hearing causing you to talk less frequently on the phone? Over time, you can feel isolated as a result of your hearing loss. You don’t have to give up using your phone. You can definitely discover ways to keep in touch with your friends and loved ones.
It’s All About Communication
They say communication is the indispensable thing in any relationship, and that is indeed true with your phone. Can anything be done to enhance the situation?
- Have you had a hearing test? Not all hearing loss is permanent, so get a correct diagnosis. Simple things including earwax buildup or an ear infection can cause temporary hearing loss.
- Are the voices tough to hear? Check the phone to make sure that the volume is turned all the way up.
- Bluetooth or headphones might be possibilities if you’ve already turned the volume up. Perhaps that’s all you require to make your phone sound better and it doesn’t cost very much.
After you eliminate some of the more obvious problems, you can have a look at other possibilities that will get you back on the phone.
There’s an App For That
The truth is, there’s more than one app. There are many apps you can download that work to get you, and your phone back on the same page, some of which are pretty cool.
What the other person says can be turned to text with some of these apps. These apps are far from perfect, but you should be able to work with them. Brands to look up include:
- Note, Listen for Deaf
- Hamilton Mobile Cap Tel
- Live Caption
Most voice to text apps are reasonably priced even though not all of them are free.
They Make a Phone For That
If you want to find a landline solution, you can get phones for your home that function the same way as an app. By amplifying the sound an the other end, they make it much easier to hear. An equalizer makes the high pitched sounds that usually get lost clearer.
Another alternative is a captioning phone. You need to have a unique phone that has a screen if you want to take advantage of the captioning service. With this service, the words are repeated or typed into software by a third party operator and are then shown on the screen of the phone. Also, the internet is required for the majority of captioning phones.
An old school phone system that is still around which works in a similar way to a captioning service is Text-to-Voice Teletype (TTY). You will need a TTY device that sits next to the phone to display the text, though.
Hearing Aids Are The Best Choice
Newer hearing aids don’t feedback every time they get close to a phone like the old ones did. The current technology can work with a hearing aid compatible phone to improve the sound and remove interference such as background noise. Even when you are not on the phone these wireless hearing aids still work.
Compatibility with both landlines and smart-phones is possible with modern, quality hearing aids. The technology works by holding the hearing device up to the phone and streaming the sound from the one to the other.
Bluetooth compatibility is also a standard feature of today’s hearing aid tech. You simply pair the phone up with the hearing aids exactly the same as you would with wireless headphones or earbuds. When the phone rings, the sound goes directly to your hearing aids.
There’s no reason to allow hearing loss ruin a perfectly good relationship. Do what you must to make up with your phone, and start talking again. It’s time to schedule an appointment with a hearing specialist to check out the newest hearing aid technology.