Dunshaw Hearing Aid Centers

So you’re travelling and brought your trusty hearing aid to help you out, but there is a problem. You go to the museum and hear the speakers describing an exhibition but at the same time you hear a lot of feedback–making it hard to understand what is going on.

There is a hearing aid accessory that’s a great tool to help you out with feedback–the neckloop.

The neckloop is a type of necklace-size loop of wire that can be plugged into an ALD or ALS receiver, a radio, TV, some computer speakers and some telephones. When worn around the neck of someone who has a hearing aid with a  telecoil, this little accessory helps clear inaudible sounds for the user.

To have it work properly, you need to turn on your telecoil and the neckloop will begin to create a small magnetic field while taking in “audible”  sound waves. The telecoil amplifies these “audible” signals for the hearing aid, making the sounds more audible and clear. The neckloop  has  some major advantages  and disadvantages:

Advantages:

• Since it uses a 3.5mm audio jack, it can plug directly into speakers, televisions, computers and other audio devices as well.

• They do help improve the audibility significantly.

• They have adjustable volume control.

• They are fairly well prices and not too expensive.

• Many public places are becoming more accessible to these hearing aid accessories.

Disadvantages:

• Even though it is becoming more accessible in the US, it still is not readily available in most places–this may take a few years.

• It only works if you have a telecoil.

• If you desire to have a larger, stronger neckloop, it will drain its own battery supply fairly quickly.

The neckloop is like any type of technology, while it helps, it still does have some drawbacks. However, it’s beneficial and helps immensly when combating hearing loss. Talk to your audiologist and see what benefit it can have for you. Don’t forget, the neckloop is not just a necklace, but a friend for you and your hearing aid.

Tags: digital hearing aids, hearing aid accessory, neckloops, t-coil, tcoils, telecoils, travel

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Accessories, hearing aid technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.