Headphones for quadriplegic with hearing aids

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melancholy1

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Please help if you can.

My good friend suffered substantial hearing loss due to operating sonar during military service. He was later in an accident that caused quadriplegia and now spends 20+ hours per day in a hospital bed in a long term VA facility. While he is privileged to have a private room, the television/music/internet access monitor (which extends over his bed) is limited in top volume due to the setting.

I have purchased good over ear headphones but the pillow pushes them forward and renders them unusable. Does anyone have any ideas? Earbuds, even with volume control, aren't loud enough to simply bypass his hearing aids and I'm not sure what to try next.
 
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What kind of HA's (hearing aids) does he have?

Maybe there some accessories you could buy that'll work with his hearing aids?
 
Secretblend said:
What kind of HA's (hearing aids) does he ha7ve?

Maybe there some accessories you could buy that'll work with his hearing aids?
Click to expand...


I apologize for the delay. He uses Starkey IIC type hearing aids. Any ideas or suggestions on where I might be able to research available accessories would be much appreciated. (I know little on the topic, as my hearing loss is mild enough that my limited lip reading skills are enough to get by without hearing aids so far.)
 
That is really neat, but I don't think it would work in the hospital room. My mobile phone is unable to connect there, so I suspect that even if his HAs have that function ... the place is built like a fortress. They do have wifi, so something that uses wifi rather than mobile signal ought to work, if his HAs are Bluetooth capable. I'll ask when I see him tomorrow.
 
Secretblend said:
First, you would need to know the exact make and model before doing research for accessories to buy. However, I was looking around the website and found this and I think this is perfect for what you are looking for.

https://www.starkey.com/hearing-aids/surflink-wireless-accessories/surflink-media
Click to expand...

Thank you for looking! I did some poking around on the site, too, and will show that option to him tomorrow. If nothing else, maybe we can check in with audiology later in the week to confirm. (I hope they aren't furloughed!)
 
He is inpatient at a VA facility but their solutions haven't been useful (basic on ear headphone much like those that came with the Sony Walkman, back in the day). He is on a ventilator 24/7, so a certain degree of sound isolation is necessary. Unfortunately, the pillow interferes with the good over ear headphones that we bought, pushing the cushion surround forward to actually block his HAs somewhat. This is why we are looking for an in ear solution, if we can find one.

On Sunday it was confirmed to me that his IIC HAs are of the older "dumb" variety, so the Starkey Media device suggested by someone else won't work with his current HAs.

I'm currently reading up on in line amps like the FiiO A3 Portable Headphone Amplifier https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00Z9BIODA and one Amazon reviewer who has 85% hearing loss over 2500 hz says that device has enabled use of earbuds. Does anyone have experience with this type of device?
 
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