Modern cell phones have become a lot clearer and more dependable nowadays. But sometimes, it will still be challenging to hear what the person on the other end is saying. As a matter of fact, there’s one group for whom phone conversations aren’t always a reliable experience: those who have hearing loss.
There must be a simple solution for that, right? Why not utilize a set of hearing aids to make your phone conversations a bit easier? Actually, it doesn’t work precisely that way. Even though hearing aids can help with conversations, with phone conversations it can be a little more difficult. But there are certainly a few things you can do to make your phone conversations more successful.
Why phone calls and hearing aids don’t always get along
Hearing loss usually isn’t immediate. It’s not like someone just turns down the overall volume on your ears. You have a tendency to lose bits and pieces at a time. It’s likely that you won’t even notice you have hearing loss and your brain will attempt to utilize contextual and visual clues to compensate.
When you have phone conversations, you no longer have these visual clues. There’s no extra information for your brain to fill in. You only hear parts and pieces of the other individual’s voice which sounds muffled and distorted.
How hearing aids can help
Hearing aids will help with this. Lots of those missing pieces can be filled in by using hearing aids. But there are some unique accessibility and communication difficulties that arise from wearing hearing aids while talking on the phone.
Feedback can happen when your hearing aids come near a phone, for instance. This can make things hard to hear and uncomfortable.
Bettering your ability to hear phone conversations
So, what can you do to overcome the obstacles of using a phone with hearing aids? Well, there are several tips that most hearing specialists will recommend:
- Make use of other assistive hearing devices: Devices, including numerous text-to-type services, are available to help you hear better during phone conversations.
- Connect your phone to your hearing aid using Bluetooth. Yes, contemporary hearing aids can stream to your smartphone via Bluetooth! This means that if your hearing aids are Bluetooth enabled, phone calls can be streamed right to your phone. This can get rid of feedback and make your phone calls a little more private, so it’s a good place to begin if you’re having difficulty on your phone.
- Try using speakerphone to conduct most of your phone calls: This will protect against the most serious feedback. There might still be some distortion, but your phone call should be mostly understandable (while maybe not necessarily private). The best way to keep your phone and your hearing aid away from each other is by using speakerphone.
- Be truthful with the person you’re talking to on the phone: It’s okay to admit if you’re having trouble! You may just need to be a little more patient, or you might want to consider using text, email, or video chat.
- Download a video call app: Face-timing somebody or jumping onto a video chat can be a very good way to help you hear better. It isn’t that the sound quality is somehow better, it’s that your brain has use of all of that fantastic visual information again. And once more, this type of contextual information will be greatly helpful.
- Find a quiet setting to carry out your phone calls. It will be a lot easier to hear the voice on the other end if there’s less noise. If you minimize background noise during phone calls your hearing aids will work so much better.
Finding the correct set of solutions will depend on what you use the phone for, how often you’re on the phone, and what your general communication needs are like. Your ability to once again enjoy phone conversations will be made possible with the right approach.
If you need more guidance on how to utilize hearing aids with your phone, call us, we can help.