TV Watching Help for Deaf
 

My husband is very deaf. He has the best hearing aids we could find, he also saw and audiologist and had the hearing aids fitted professionally. He can hear when I speak to him, but he cannot listen and understand the TV, especially the news. Many years ago we had a friend with this problem and his wife found him something which plugged into the TV and was attached to headphones.

If you can help me with any information I would be very grateful, he is gradually disappearing into his own little world.

TV Ears maybe?
Amazon.com

This thread discusses adapters for listening to TV on bluetooth capable hearing aids.

Don't forget that closed captioning is available to supplement what he hears.

I have Bluetooth connection which is great, but still need captions, as I find a lot of talking these days, is more of a mumble.
Plus the really annoying incessant need for background music.
The above posts give a link to a previous thread, and how to get a device that allows Bluetooth and sound from tv at the same time.

I wear Resound HA's and have a program to use their TV streamer which improves comprehension enormously .. when watching TV without streaming I have at best 50% comprehension click on the streamer and it goes up to about 90%

The hearing aids that he has don’t have a TV connector? I have Phonak and they come with a Bluetooth TV connector that streams right into my hearing aids.

He has Oticon. With the information I have been given by so many kind people here, I will do some research today and see if I can understand any of this, but it may be above my pay grade!

My husband's hearing aides allow the Bluetooth TV connection, too. The audiologist programmed it for him.

Start here

Watch-TV

I am really surprised his audiologist never mentioned this

This thread is what I love about TOTV. So much REAL help. Oldtimes, thank you. I had actually just found this from their website and if it works as described it should do exactly what he needs. I, too, am surprised she did not mention this to me and when I bring him for his next appointment I will bring it to her attention. I think I am more surprised that this little box is not included with the initial package, the hearing aids were certainly expensive enough to have included this and the remote control which will do the same thing.

I needed to find a way for him to watch TV because I am losing him into isolation and possibly early dementia. So thank you to all who gave their time to help me. If I have problems I might be back for more help.

People do not understand about hearing loss. Just making things louder does not help at all since it is a certain range of sounds that cannot be heard. Turning up the volume just makes the range of sound that can be heard louder. I hate going into restaurants and even people's homes where they feel that background music is needed. For hearing impaired people it just makes conversation difficult to impossible.

My husband is profoundly deaf. It has completely changed his personality. He used to enjoy being with people, now he is the zombie in the room, when we get together as a family he is completely left out. He can hear, but he cannot comprehend what people are saying to him unless it is one on one. Agree with you on dining out, it is a nightmare for him, so much background noise from other tables enjoying themselves. I no longer feel safe leaving him which is impacting my life too.

Streamers for newbies 101:

Most hearing aides now come with bluetooth technology. Just like apple ear buds and others, your hearing aides can connect directly to a device's audio system without the need for external speakers.

With a TV or Computer, however, you still need a device that provides that connection. That device has a bunch of different names, but is usually referred to as a streamer box or streaming device. The box is around the size of your palm, and has two wires: one plugs into the TV's USB port and the other plugs into the audio jack. The device itself can be placed on the TV cabinet, and mine came with velcro so I have mine stuck under the surface of my computer desk (My device is attached to my computer, not my TV).

Then, you can "pair" your hearing aides with your TV set, and the sound will automatically be sent directly to the hearing aides instead of the speakers.

Apparently some sets can have sound coming to both - ears and speakers. But as someone who uses my streamer exclusively and has actually experimented - there's a miniscule delay between the two. Which means if you are streaming into your ears while the speaker of the TV is audible, you might have even worse trouble listening to the sound because it's coming from too many different places, and not *exactly* at the same time.

The "solution" to the above problem is: the person with the hearing aides gets the volume. And turn down the speaker volume on the TV, and turn on closed captioning. Then YOU, the hearing-enabled loved one, can watch TV, read the closed captioning, and be able to sort of hear the speakers, but at a low volume. Because you are hearing enabled, you will have a much easier time of matching low-volume sounds with words on the screen than someone who has the sound coming from their own ears, while looking across the room at the TV set.

Good hearing aides can be programmed to filter out background noise. It isn't 100%. Not even 50%. But it actually does a better job of it than a hearing-enabled person's brain can do it. Basically it turns the receiver into an omnidirectional microphone, so whoever he is facing, will be the loudest sound he hears and everything else will be slightly muffled.