KNOW HOW | The Beep that Keeps Me Up at Night

By L. Felecia Reimann and Lindsey Jorgensen

This article is a part of the November/December 2017, Volume 29, Number 6, Audiology Today issue.

It is 2:00 am. I am searching through my house to find the smoke alarm that is running out of battery. Why does it always seem to go off at 2:00 am?! This sound is familiar to many of us; however, most alerting devices (alarm clocks, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, weather monitors, etc.) have one thing in common: alerting users with a high-pitch auditory signal. This raises a significant concern. Patients who are deaf or are hard of hearing may not be able to hear an alerting signal unaided, which puts their lives at risk and can make them less independent.

In 2015, 1,345,500 fires were reported in the United States, causing 3,280 civilian deaths, and 15,700 civilian injuries. These numbers mean that in 2015, a house fire was reported every 86 seconds (National Fire Protection Association, 2017). Hopefully the call was not to a home with a hearing-impaired individual who did not hear the smoke alarm.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, from 1980 to 2011, the percentage of fatal home fire victims 65 years of age or older increased from 19 percent to 31 percent (Ahrens, 2014). In 2010, the beginning of the “baby boomer” generation started turning 65. One in three adults age 65–74 years have presbycusis, putting them in the high-risk category for not hearing fire safety devices, but many are also at higher risk due to vision impairment and mobility issues. Alerting devices are not top of mind for patients, but should be a recommendation for patients of any age with hearing loss whether they are ready to aid their hearing loss or not.