Many Adults Can’t Hear Smoke Alarms. Here’s What Helps

Standard smoke detectors aren’t the best option for waking those with hearing loss, but alternatives can be hard to come by.

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Brenda Hass was roused by the smell of burning after accidentally falling asleep after putting water on her stove to boil. However, if the shrill of her smoke detector had broken the silence, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

In 2020, Hass was diagnosed with a progressive form of hearing loss linked to Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune thyroid disorder associated with damage to the inner ear’s sound-sensing cells.