Telecoil Loops in Hearing Aids

What are they?

Firstly, telecoil loops may also be referred to as ‘induction loops’, ‘telecoils’, ‘t-coils’, ‘t-loops’ etc.

A telecoil loop is a wired electrical loop that improves speech understanding for hearing aid wearers in certain environments.

It comprises:

A microphone – worn by a speaker, or placed close to a stage, etc, linked to…
A wired electrical loop (around a room, building or counter) – which sends out a converted electromagnetic audio signal, which is picked up by…
Hearing aids with a t-coil programme – so long as they are within the loop, and set to the T programme – the hearing aids convert the sound to analogue audio to be heard clearly by the hearing aid wearer.

The benefits being:

Radio waves are quicker that sound waves so the sound gets to the ears quicker, for quicker processing
The important parts of speech for clarity do not diminish over distance – so overall clarity is better regardless of distance from the speaker
It can overcome barriers which can hinder speech such as post office counters, in noisy post offices.
You can use the T-Coil programme with the hearing aid microphones on or off meaning you can shut down any adjacent background noise if required.

Telecoil loop systems can overcome background noise and distance to source

So the type of places you can find telecoil loops include:

Lecture rooms
Churches
Theatres
Conference halls
Living rooms, for televisions
And, also telephones can incorporate telecoil-loop technology

Note: not all hearing aids have a telecoil included, so if buying new hearing aids or receiving some NHS hearing aids – ask your audiologist for guidance.

Telecoil benefits in hearing aids should not be underestimated

(That said, hearing aid wearers with age related hearing loss, or nerve damage, must remember that their hair cells are damaged and perfect hearing cannot therefore be achieved. Read Presbyacusis).