← Back to News

Hearing Loop System

BHS Elderly residents“I want my friends, colleagues, and future residents to understand and enjoy the spoken word.” stated Harold S.

For nearly 36 million American adults, some degree of hearing loss affects their lives. About one in four use hearing aids which improve their quality of life. Even so, hearing aid users are challenged as a hearing aid is unable to filter out many unwanted background sounds like our ears are able to do. As a result, a person cannot fully enjoy a dining experience or attending special events as the level of background noise can often be as loud as a speaker at a podium.
A hearing loop system or audio induction loop system is a special type of sound system for use by people with hearing aids. A hearing loop system transmits an audio signal directly into a hearing aid via a magnetic field, greatly reducing background noise, competing sounds, reverberation and other acoustic distortions that reduce clarity of sound.

At Madonna Living Community of Rochester and Byron, we see these difficulties impact our residents’ ability to enjoy daily activities such as: worship services, socializing, the monthly Mayo Research Speakers Series, art therapy programs, entertaining performances, bingo and other activities which are just a few of our many resident activities. A special group of people (see photo) want to improve their experience and make their lives fuller by installing a hearing loop system at Madonna Towers campus in the main Chapel and the Sr. Generose Auditorium. They invited Dr. Hogan, director of the Mayo Hearing Center, to a dinner party to hear about the system and to have questions answered. To date, $25,000 has been raised to begin the initial installation project in the Main Towers Chapel through gifts from the Carl & Verna Schmidt Foundation, the Dieser Family memorial in honor of their dad Joe and through an anonymous donor. These donors will help improve the sound quality of life for our current and future residents through funding the purchase and installation of a hearing loop system.

For you to be “in the loop” on this special project update, contact Sandy Molenda at 507-405-2609 or sandy.molenda@bhshealth.org