> 0n (19 Aug 05) Barbara McNay wrote to All...

 >  BM> Has anybody heard of personal alarm monitors, and know where to get
 >  BM> them, if they exist?  I was at the doctor's office the other day, and

 >  :( There ought to be. Surely (here I am going to be
 > cynical: it's a
 > marketable situation for a market target long
 > ignored.)

 > But as a patient the staff is responsible for you,
 > they'd come and
 > make sure all the patients are evacuated whether they
 > hear or not.

 > Yet yes life is more dangerous for those of us who are
 > hearing
 > impaired. We have to rely on our eyes; what we see
 > others doing. In
 > the home there are such devices you can install that
 > include flashing
 > lights as well as audible alarms. The same ought to be
 > true in public

I was, as I say, in the exam room.  All the alarms did have lights.  There
was one in the room, in fact, as well as numerous ones in the hallway.  The
unit in the room I was in was high up on the wall beside me; the room was
fully lighted, and if I had been dozing off as I frequently do, I would
never have known anything was amiss.  As it was, I was looking in the
mirror at the monitor that shows what the doctor sees when he examines your
eyes, and--I thought--it began to spark.  I thought it was shorting out,
and I was getting up to go tell somebody, when the man came to get me.  As
I left the room, I saw the wall unit in the mirror, so then realized that
what I had seen was a reflection.  The lights can be useless, too, in a
well-lighted area.

 > places as well. How hard can it be for the alarm
 > makers to adjust
 > their products to the needs of everyone, not just the
 > hearing?

Rather hard, apparently.  Or maybe, with forethought, proper placement
helps.  In that room, that alarm/light might better have been placed on the
front wall of the room, or in back of the patient on the back wall, so that
it would be visible in the mirror at the front of the room.

 >  ...................

 >  BM> while I was waiting in the exam room for the doctor to come in, the
 >  BM> alarms went off, and I couldn't hear them at all.  Somebody came and
 >  BM> got me, and we all went outside for ten minutes or so.  That incident
 >  BM> brought home to me just how inadequate fire, smoke, CO2, backing, and
 >  BM> any other similar alarms are for the deaf or hard of hearing.  There
 >  BM> are some monitors that you can wire or plug into your circuitry at
 >  BM> home, but that's useless anywhere else.  What I envision is a
 >  BM> battery-operated device somewhat analagous to a voice-activated
 >  BM> recorder:  A device that will react to loud sounds in the frequencies
 >  BM> used by most of the above listed alarms, by causing a vigorous
 >  BM> vibration of the unit, and which can be carried in a pocket, worn
 >  BM> around the neck or wrist, or clipped to the waistband, and which will
 >  BM> function anywhere, without having to be part of a set or plugged in.

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