Over 5% of the world’s population – or 430 million people – require rehabilitation to address their ‘disabling’ hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children). It is estimated that by 2050 over 700 million people – or one in every ten people – will have disabling hearing loss. (World Health Organization, April 2021).

Those with hearing loss are often an unknown and under-served group. Everyone knows someone with hearing loss, yet if you ask people what accommodations are made, they often have no idea that assistive listening accommodations are available.

One misunderstood aspect of hearing loss is that while hearing aids are great, they do not work in every situation. Hearing aids work great in a quiet environment, but in places with a lot of ambient noise, an assistive listening system is needed to block out unwanted sound and deliver sound directly to people’s ears. People with hearing loss need more signal than noise- it isn’t helpful if the sound is just louder.