Dear All,
We are PhD students at Imperial College London. We plan to invent a new equipment which might help people with profoundly hearing loss in both ears (cannot wearing hearing aids or Cochlear Implants). However, we do not have this problem ourselves, and we do not know how exactly you feel, so we decide to post some questions here, and hope you could give us a hand.
1, Do you worry about your safety when you walk on the street, or cross the road? (cause you cannnot hear some danger)
Yes, especially when there's people around me.
2, Have you met the situation that you cannot hear the alarms in a building?
Not when I'm wearing hearing aids. I do worry about not hearing alarms in my home because without my hearing aids, it's anyone's guess what I'll hear.
3, When you are at home, do you feel it is inconvenient, as you cannot hear the beeping of microwaves, doorbell ect.
No, if I'm not the one using it. It is a pain to not hear someone knocking because I feel bad that they might think I'm ignoring them. However, the kitchen is another matter: I typically come close to creating a small fire each time I use the kitchen when I don't hear the kettle on the stove, or realize something has been cooking for a while and should be turned off. If I have something on a timer, I can't leave the area or I won't hear it go off.
4, Have you met the situation that somebody called you, but you ignored them?
Yes. Who doesn't?
5, Could you please write down all the problems you met, which was caused by that you cannot hear something.
To make it simple - if my hearing aids aren't in - I'm not hearing. If a battery dies and I don't have a spare, the same thing. If it's noisy, it's still very hard, if not impossible to understand what is said.
6, If you have HA or CI, but you still have these problems, you are also welcome to talk about it, but could you please mentioned that you have HA or CI.
Hearing aids.