Noisy environments are tougher to hear in whether you wear hearing aids or not. Hearing aids do not eliminate background noise, but they can help the person with hearing loss to hear well. If you have hearing loss in both ears, most people will need two hearing aids. Noisy environments, in particular, can sound chaotic with only one ear. For certain situations, some people need more than hearing aids – a special adapter or pick-up for the telephone; doorbell and smoke alarm alerting devices; infrared television amplifiers as examples.