If you or someone you care for has moderate to severe hearing loss, chances are you’ve tried amplified telephones and been disappointed with the results. But don’t give up: the XL-50 Amplified Telephone by Ameriphone could be exactly what you’ve been looking for. Billed as “the world’s most powerful amplified phone” , the XL-50 is designed with moderate to severe hearing loss in mind.

Extra-Powerful Volume Boost
The XL-50 Amplified Telephone offers incoming volume amplification of up to 60+db. This level of amplification could be overkill for people with mild hearing loss, but for those with moderate to severe hearing problems it’s absolutely crucial. The incoming voice volume is adjustable, which lets the user find the best level of amplification for each conversation. This feature also allows for comfortable use by non-hearing impaired people (a must for a shared phone).

Noise Filtering For Clear, Distortion-Free Sound Even At High Volume
Volume isn’t the only telephone problem for people with moderate to severe hearing loss. Background noise can make words sound blurry and indistinct, and at high volumes sound distortion is common.  The XL-50 Amplified Telephone addresses these issues with an advanced electronic circuit design that eliminates unwanted background noise and a special Anti-Feedback Filter eliminates feedback and distortion, even at the highest volume levels.

FEATURES:

- Amplified super-loud ringer (can increase ring volume to to 100db)

- Bright flashing accompanies ring to minimize the chance of missing calls

- Hearing Aid compatible handset

- 3.5mm audio output jack for assistive listening devices such as headsets or neckloops

- 12 memory dialing buttons

- Hold/redial/flash buttons

- Visual voice mail/unanswered call indicator

- Desk or wall mountable

- AC Adapter with battery backup

- 1 year mfg warranty

Even after the problem becomes impossible to ignore, it can be tempting to place the blame on other people and situations; most hearing-impaired people go through a period of complaining that others just don’t speak clearly, play the TV at ridiculously low volume, etc. This can lead to real stress in relationships, with everyone involved winding up angry and offended.

The best way to help someone come to terms with hearing loss is to handle the situation in a calm, cooperative, and matter-of-fact way. Avoid being confrontational, and be sensitive to the emotional upset that the inability to hear clearly often involves.

If you act exasperated or annoyed when the person misunderstands you or asks you to repeat yourself, you’re making it much, much harder for them to accept their condition. And until that happens, they will be unable to seek the assistance they need.

Understanding and sensitivity are crucial
Remember that the person having hearing difficulty almost certainly feels embarrassed to have to keep asking you to repeat yourself, so make a special effort to help them understand you. Try to look directly at the person while you’re talking, and don’t rush your words; speak slowly and clearly, but without undue exaggeration.

Increase the volume of your voice, but don’t shout; yelling at a hearing impaired person will have exactly the same effect as yelling at someone with perfect hearing, and will almost certainly lead to anger, resentment, and hurt feelings.

Most importantly, be reassuring. The inability to hear clearly can be both frustrating and frightening, and can make people feel humiliated, isolated, and very much alone. The best thing friends and family can do to help someone with hearing impairment is to behave as normally as possible, making sure the person knows they’re cared for as much as ever.

Focus on finding solutions
Most hearing loss is, unfortunately, irreversible. Age-related hearing loss, which effects about a third of all people over 60 and a full half of everyone over age 80, is both permanent and untreatable. But there are many options for making life easier, safer, and more enjoyable.

Encourage the hearing impaired person to see an audiologist, but if you meet with resistance, back off; in many cases, hearing aids can be a tremendous help, but they’re not the only answer. Investigate the wide and ever-increasing array of assisted hearing devices, which include alarm clocks to telephones, smoke detectors, doorbells, TV amplifiers, and more.

Hearing loss that is directly related to aging, which is also known as presbycusis, is almost impossible to link to any one specific cause. However there are several factors, some of which we can effect but most of which are beyond our control, that may be part of the cause.

Heredity is believed to play an important role in determining whether we experience hearing impairment as we age. Having parents and/or grandparents who became hard of hearing when they got older increases the odds that that you may lose some hearing capability.

Exposure to loud noises can contribute to the problem. People who work in a very noisy environment are at greater risk of hearing impairment. Listening to very loud music for long periods of time, particularly through earphones, may add to the problem.

Age, gender, and race can effect your odds of hearing impairment. There is no specific age at which hearing loss is automatically designated as age-related, though it’s rarely diagnosed in people under 50. The older we get the greater the risk, and about half of all people 65 and over experience some level of hearing loss.

Men seem to be at considerably greater risk of age related hearing problems than women. Research by the National Academy on Aging Society indicates that some 60% of all people with hearing loss are men, and the older we get the greater the variance becomes.

Whites are more likely to experience hearing loss than blacks at all ages, but the gap widens as the population ages. According to the NAAS whites make up 83% of the general population in the US, but they comprise 91% of the hearing impaired population.

The mechanics of age-related hearing loss

The physical mechanics of hearing loss related to aging involves gradual changes to the structure of the inner ear. The most common change takes place in the cochlea, the part of the inner ear that enables us to hear high-pitched sounds. Tiny hairs inside the cochlea pick up vibrations and transform them to nerve signals that we interpret as sound. As part of the natural aging process, some of those hairs and nerve endings are lost. Since they do not grow back, this type of hearing loss is permanent.

Presbycusis can also be caused by other changes within the ear, including a loss of flexibility in the cochlea and damage to the acoustic nerve.

According to the US Census Bureau, the younger half of the 75.8 million Americans who were born during the period between 1946 and 1964 are turning 50 at the rate one every 8 seconds, and thousands of those born in the early and middle years of the baby boom are turning 60 each day. Baby boomers make up 28% of the US population today, and by 2014 a whopping 45% of the US population will be over age 50.

Since some degree of hearing loss is among the most common of all age related health problems (approximately a third of all people over 50 have some degree of hearing impairment), the nation is getting deafer by the day. According to the National Institutes of Health, hearing loss is now the third most common health problem in the US, behind only arthritis and heart disease.

What causes age-related hearing loss?
Gradual age related loss of hearing capability, technically known as presbycusis, is generally difficult to attribute to any single cause. Physicians believe that heredity may play a significant role, but environmental factors such as frequent exposure to loud noises and even the build-up of wax in the ear canals can be causal as well.

Experts say that in most cases, age related hearing loss is the result of many factors that work together to create degerative changes in the inner ear. There is no cure for age related hearing loss, and it’s a permanent condition that may continue to get worse as we get older. Approximately half of all people over 75 have some degree of hearing loss.

Symptoms of age related hearing loss
Age-related hearing loss is almost never a sudden-onset type of problem; in fact, it’s a process so gradual that many people are unaware of it. This can have far-reaching negative effects on social engagement, relationships, and job performance, and can be downright dangerous as well, particularly when driving or operating machinery is involved.

The most common symptoms of age related hearing loss include the following:
- Difficulty in hearing other voices; since high frequency hearing is generally effected first, women’s voices may be more difficult to hear than men’s
- The need to turn up the volume on the TV, radio, etc.
- Experiencing sounds as muffled, distant, or indistinct
- Difficulty understanding spoken words; needing to ask others to speak louder and more slowly

Diagnosis and treatment
A simple hearing test or audiogram can diagnose hearing loss and may help determine what, if any, treatment is most appropriate. Since there is currently no way to reverse or ameliorate age related hearing loss, treatment focuses almost entirely on improving function. Hearing aids are the mainstay of treatment, but many also find that addressing specific situation in which hearing is a problem is a workable solution.

Devices such as phone line amplifiers, amplified telephones, and extra-loud ringers can dramatically improve phone communications for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Special alarm clocks, doorbells, and alerting devices such as smoke alarms are available, as are a wide array of assisted listening devices.

Like phone line amplifiers, which are attached between the telephone base unit and the handset, telephones made specifically for people with hearing impairment boost the volume of incoming voices. But increasing incoming volume is only one of the ways that telephones for hard of hearing people solve problems and improve the quality of calls for people with hearing problems.

Reduction of Background Noise
Most people with mild to moderate hearing loss have problems with speech clarity, especially when there is background noise. For many people, simple amplifiers actually make the problem worse by increasing the volume of static and background noise.

However some advanced phones for hearing impairment, such as the Clarity 5.8 GHz Professional Amplified Cordless Phone with DCP and Digital Answering Machine (C4230), have adapted a form of the digital signal processing used in hearing aids to significantly reduce background noise and static, dramatically improving speech clarity.

Frequency Correction
Even mild to moderate hearing loss can make high frequency sounds very difficult to hear, regardless of volume. One of the best innovations in phones like the Walker W1000 Clarity High-Frequency Enhancing Telephone is the use of tone correction technology, which allows the user to manually adjust the tone of incoming voices for maximum clarity.

Extra-Loud Ringers
If you often miss calls simply because you didn’t hear the telephone ring, look for brands and styles like the Clarity C4205 2.4GHz Cordless Phone with 50-dB Amplification and Extra Loud Ringer (White), which feature extra-loud ringers and ringer pitch control.

About 100 million people in America have some form of hearing loss, which makes it the third most common health problem in the nation. Studies indicate that more than 30% of all people over 60 have at least some hearing impairment, and with more than 8,000 Baby Boomers turning 60 every day, hearing problems are becoming an important concern both at home and in the workplace.

One of the most common and frustrating problems associated with mild to moderate hearing loss is speech clarity, particularly when talking on the phone. Voices often sound muffled or very low in volume, and words may be indistinct.

A phone line amplifier is a simple, affordable, and practical way to boost the volume of incoming voices. Amplifiers are small, easy-to-install units that are attached between the phone’s base unit and handset.

These compact units can effectively increase incoming voice volume by 30 to 40 Db, which may be enough to offset mild to moderate hearing loss. In addition, some phone line amplifiers are also designed to decrease static, hiss, and background noise.

Portable phone line amplifiers like the Clarity CE225 In-Line Phone Amplifier are small enough to fit easily into a purse or briefcase and can be a big help for people who travel or who must talk on the phone at work. Because these units are quickly and easily installed with no wiring involved, they can attached to most corded phones in just a minute.

Amplified handsets like the Clarity Walker Amplified Handset replace the standard telephone handset work similarly to phone line amplifiers and provide a similar volume boost.

For many people with mild hearing loss, phone line amplifiers or amplified handsets are an excellent solution. For those with greater hearing impairment, however, a dedicated amplified telephone that can provide greater increase in volume and frequency control may be a better choice.

Start With The Level Of Hearing Impairment
To get the best results, it’s important to select the device that’s best suited to the user’s level of hearing impairment. If the person who will be using the phone uses a hearing aid or has consulted a hearing professional, you probably know what level of hearing loss you’re dealing with. But if you’re not ready for that step yet, levels of hearing loss can be broadly categorized as follows:

- Mild hearing loss means the person has difficulty hearing soft sounds and may also experience problems with speech clarity, particularly on the phone. People with mild hearing loss may be well served by phone line amplifiers or amplified handsets, which can increase volume from 30 – 40 decibels. Special amplified phones for hearing impaired also work very well for those with mild hearing loss.

-Moderate hearing loss generally means the person has difficulty hearing both soft and moderately loud sounds and has considerable problems with speech clarity, particularly if there is background noise. People with moderate hearing loss do best with amplified phones for hearing impaired, which offer many options that do more than simple increase volume.

Telephones like the Clarity C4205 2.4GHz Cordless Phone with 50-dB Amplification and Extra Loud Ringer (White) and the Clarity 5.8 GHz Professional Amplified Cordless Phone with DCP and Digital Answering Machine (C4230) use the same digital sound process technology used in hearing aids to eliminate static and background noise, which greatly enhances voice and speech clarity.

Amplified telephones will not serve those who suffer from severe or profound hearing loss.

Frequency-related hearing difficulties
Many people with mild to moderate hearing impairment find it particularly difficult to hear high-frequency sounds. In that case, look for phones like the Walker W1000 Clarity High-Frequency Enhancing Telephone, which are specially designed to enhance high frequency sounds.

Look For Lifestyle Options
Amplified phones for hearing impaired are available in both corded and cordless styles, and many offer options such as extra-loud ringers and oversize buttons that are easy to see and use. Some amplified phones such as the Clarity 5.8 GHz Professional Amplified Cordless Phone with DCP and Digital Answering Machine (C4230) include speaker phone capability and a digital answering machine.