For some customers, their hearing ability in noise is deeply damaged. This can be through severe noise damage or simply very advanced sensorineural hearing loss. These customers especially will benefit from the Sound Assist, which is a multifunctional microphone, bluetooth adapter and telecoil. It can be used: on the table to reduce background noise at dinner; clipped to a speaking partner to reduce background noise; connected to a laptop to play sound direct to the hearing aids; connected to a Loop system even if the aids don't have loop installed.
My most challenging (in hearing terms!) customer has been trying out the Sound Assist. This customer is well into the cochlear implant zone, but she is still managing with her Widex hearing aids. She does this by complementing the aids with lipreading and controlling the room. Here's what she has to say about the Sound Assist for those awkward situations.
Please get in touch with me if you would like to understand more about whether Sound Assist would help you too.
"The Widex Sound Assist is an amazing little accessory that has given me a massive improvement in my hearing and a boost in confidence in situations where there is a lot of background noise. The remote microphone sends speech direct to my Widex “Moment” hearing aids.
Before I had a Sound Assist I couldn’t hear much at restaurants beyond the people next to me, and found myself sitting nodding and smiling, but not getting more than 2 in10 words from anybody else.
The sound assist sitting on the table enables me to pick up much more of the conversation from larger groups. I am profoundly deaf so it is not perfect, because nothing is perfect, but I can understand enough to join the conversation without making a fool of myself. In my local club, when there is loud live music I find I can still hear by holding the microphone up to whoever I am with and it works very well, again making conversation possible.
It is also a huge help on car journeys, when it can be clipped to the clothing of the driver to enable you to hear them without full on lip-reading. This makes conversation less stressful, for the driver as well as myself, as they don’t have to keep half-turning towards me.
I can recommend it, and frankly I wouldn’t be without it now."