Digital wireless telephones and hearing aids: new challenges for audiology.

W hen the telephone was first invented, it was regarded as a luxury that only the wealthy could afford, and, as a result, its use grew slowly at first. More widespread use of the telephone occurred as the telephone system continued to expand, offering more people the opportunity to communicate across greater distances at lower costs. A similar trend occurred with other technological marvels of yesteryear, such as the automobile and air travel. Today, our industrialized society is critically dependent on the use of technology, and the telephone is no longer regarded as a luxury but as an essential communication tool. The past few years have witnessed a dramatic increase in our dependence on modern technology. Innovations such as the Internet, personal computers, and wireless communication systems have had, and are continuing to have, a profound effect on virtually every aspect of society. Much of the emphasis in these emerging technologies is on increased convenience and greater efficiency. Technological advances, however , often turn out to be a double-edged sword for people with disabling conditions. The hearing aid, for example, was the direct result of advances in telephone engineering. On the other hand, engineering improvements in the design of telephone handsets so as to reduce stray magnetic fields made it much more difficult to couple a hearing aid to the telephone by means of a telecoil. The importance of the telephone as an essential tool in our society and the need to provide people with disabling conditions with equal access to communications technology have resulted in important legislation mandating that appropriate steps be taken to achieve this goal as far as possible. It is now a requirement, for example, that all new landline telephones be hearing aid compatible (i .e ., the telephone must generate a magnetic field of sufficient strength to allow for effective coupling with the telecoil of a hearing aid). With hindsight, the term "hear-ing aid compatible" has turned out to be a misnomer since it refers specifically to magnetic coupling with a hearing aid and overlooks the possibility that there may be other factors that may render a telephone to be incompatible with a hearing aid, as we have since discovered. Laws are typically designed to deal with existing problems. They are seldom designed to deal with problems that may emerge in the future. The first generation of wireless telephones encoded and transmitted speech and Visit …