As a public service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides an “all-hazards” radio network, broadcasting weather and emergency information for all types of hazards including natural (earthquakes, avalanches), environmental (chemical releases, oil spills), and public safety (AMBER alerts, 911). NOAA weather radios (NWR) activate to announce immediate information about life threatening events, giving extra time to prepare and evacuate if necessary. The broadcast is preceded by the Emergency Response Signal, a dedicated signal that serves as an indicator that an important message is about to follow.
If you have a patient with hearing loss who needs to hear emergency signals broadcast by their NOAA (Weather Alert) radio, the Serene Central Alert CA-360 (item# CA-360) is the perfect solution. The relatively new Serene CA-360 functions as a bedside alarm clock, providing audio, visual (built-in strobe), and vibrotactile (bed shaker) alerts in direct response to the doorbell, landline telephone, and NOAA (Weather Alert) Radio. The CA-360 is equipped with a NOAA plug on the back panel which will accommodate NWR radios equipped with a 3.5mm alert output jack (Midland Model WR-120, Radio Shack Model 12-382, First Alert Model WX-150, Sangean CL-100 to name a few).
Furthermore, the Serene CA-360 offers a handful of additional accessories (sold separately) that expands its functionality to also alert individuals of other need-to-hear sounds including the residential smoke detector. Specifically, the Audio Alarm accessory (item# CA-AX) detects the unique T3 audio signal residential smoke detectors are required to generate. It then wirelessly sends a signal to the CA-360, triggering the necessary auditory, visual and vibrotactile alerts at bedside. Not a bad product to let your patients know about and to have nearby! For more information on the CA-360 and other Serene products, contact customer service at Oaktree Products at 800.347.1960.
great timing of this post! I am an audiologist with hearing loss and slept through my alarm yesterday and was thinking i really need one of those VT alarm clocks. I have a 1 year old so I cannot set alarm as loud as I would like to wake me up. Also I tried the Sonic Alert alarm/baby monitor when my son was younger and I don’t know if the one I got was defective but it did not work right so I returned it. I may give this new device a try and if it works will recommend to more of my patients! Is there a baby monitor accessory?
They do offer a baby monitor accessory (item CA-BX); it looks similar to the Audio Alarm Sensor (item CA-AX) pictured in the blog post. You place this accessory in the Baby’s room; it is equipped with a sensor that activates when the baby cries. It wirelessly sends the signal to the CA-360 located at bedside or wherever you decide to put it. When you give this a try, keep in touch and let me know how it goes.
Sorry to learn that your Sonic Alert alarm didn’t work out; that is a good product too and essentially works in the same way in terms of the baby monitor set up (baby monitor accessry that plugs into the wall picks up the baby cry and wirelessly sends the signal to any receiver such as the SB100 alarm clock or the AL12 receiver or the AL10 system receiver).
This sounds very useful. However, this was designed for people with hearing loss, including many professionals, most of whom do not see themselves as “patients.” The use of the word “patients” in this article can have an unintended negative connotation, limiting perceptions about who the target audience should be.
Many consumers with hearing loss would certainly benefit tremendously from learning about such potentially lifesaving advances from their audiologist or dispenser, but few such professionals seem to have a system of keeping them updated…relying only on hearing aid issues to bring the person with hearing loss back into the office despite the rapid advances in technological innovations outside of hearing aids (such as more effective alerting during deep sleep, better telecommunications options, etc.).
What ought to be done to advise people with hearing loss about important changes in technology, services, etc? The field of audiology seems to have a head-in-the-sand approach to this need. Yet if audiologists don’t see optimizing the use of assistive technology and relevant programs as part of their professional role, who will?
Dana:
the intended audience of my Audiology Blog are fellow audiologists, hearing instrument specialists, and other professionals who provide services to individuals with hearing loss and/or balance disorders. The term “patient” is not intended to be negative; it is simply a term that I often use when talking to my colleagues about the populations that we serve. Often times, the information posted may be informative and useful to other audiences, however, the intended audience is as outlined above. There are specific websites, blogs, etc. dedicated to the consumer with hearing loss; when I decided to start this blog, I had to identify my intended audience. If this were a consumer-focused blog, the information as well as the manner in which it is written would be different. I hope that makes sense.
To answer your question “What ought to be done to advise people with hearing loss and about important chagnes in technology, services, etc?”, there are a lot of things that can and should be done. For me, as an audiologist and employee of Oaktree Products who does not sell to the consumer/public, my daily interactions are with my customers who happen to be audiologists, hearing instrument specialists, etc. With that in mind, the main reason I decided to start this blog is to help keep my industry colleagues informed and educated about new products, new technologies that come across my desk. With roughly 4,000 products that we are equipped to sell to our hearing industry customers, my blog in inteded to help my colleagues stay in the loop by posting weekly information with the hope that they take the information and either apply it in their clinical practice and/or share with the people who make appointments to come see them to talk about their hearing loss.