Home Safety Tips for People with Hearing Loss

If you’ve been using hearing aids to treat your hearing loss, you already know all the good things they can do for us. Hearing aids let us hear the sounds we’ve been missing and keep us aware of what’s going on around us. Hearing aids are a great way to treat hearing loss because they make people safer.

Even if we use hearing aids, we can always make small changes to our lives that will make us safer. Here are some safety tips for situations where you can use your hearing aids or not.

Home Fire Safety

From USA “More than 2,500 people die in home fires every year. Most of these fires happen in homes without working smoke alarms.” House fires that kill people usually happen late at night or early in the morning, when people are sleeping. When there is a fire, it gives off poisonous gases that make you feel dizzy and sleepy. The common belief is that a fire will wake you up, but it may actually make you sleep more. This is why it is so important to install and maintain smoke alarms properly to protect against injury and death.

Most hearing aids need to be taken out before bed and put back in the next morning. Some rechargeable hearing aids need to be charged overnight to work well during the day. Make sure you have smoke alarms on every level of your home, including the basement, and outside every sleeping area to keep you safe at night when you don’t have your hearing aids on.

There are special alarms for people who have trouble hearing that go off when there is a fire. In addition to traditional fire alarms that only make noise, you might want to install a vibrating alarm or one with flashing lights in your bedroom.

Make Phone Plans for Emergencies

We all know that in an emergency, the phone can save your life. There are many devices that can help people who have trouble hearing use the phone. Video relay systems may be helpful for people with severe hearing loss or who are partially or completely deaf (VRS). With this type of help, you can get an American Sign Language interpretation from a VRS employee who will tell emergency services what you need.

You might also want to think about getting a phone that shows text. CapTel (also called a captioned phone) is an excellent option for individuals with hearing loss. Captioned phones let you see what you and the person on the other end of the line are saying in real-time, so you can understand them better. Here is where you can find out more.

There are now hearing aids that can connect directly to your smartphone. With this wireless connection, your hearing aids can directly pick up conversations. This makes it easier for you to talk with other people. Hearing aids that work with smartphones allow you to have clearer and more effective conversations, which can be very helpful in an emergency.

When we talk about smartphones, there are things like vibrating bracelets that you can connect to your phone to wake you up when a call comes in while you are sleeping. If your hearing aids are out for the night and someone is trying to get in touch with you, these accessories can help. Make sure you have all of your emergency contacts and medical providers’ phone numbers ready or saved as “speed dial” on your phone.

Alarms For Home Safety 

If you’ve ever accidentally set off your home security alarm, you may have heard how painfully loud those sounds can be. It may be hard to believe that anyone could miss them, but many sounds can become hard to hear without hearing aids. Consider installing home security alarms that can wake you up in the middle of the night by shaking your pillow or flashing bright lights.

Putting in an induction loop in your home is another way to solve the problem. Induction loops are thin copper wires that are put around the edges of rooms in your home. If your hearing aids have a telecoil, audio sounds from different systems in your home can be sent directly to your ears (T-coil). This direct stream of sound can be helpful in an emergency, and it’s also easy to use when you’re watching TV at home.

Get Your Hearing Checked Every Year 

Getting a hearing test once a year is the most important safety measure for people with hearing loss. Our hearing does change over time, but it happens so slowly that we might not notice right away. An annual hearing test provides you with an in-depth look at your hearing ability and whether or not you need to seek treatment or update your current technology. To learn more about safety and hearing loss, contact the staff at Hearing Well Matters on (647) 247-2704.