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My mother, Ellie David, is having much trouble with her speech at
times.  She has a problem controlling her mouth in order to be able to
get the words out.  When it's very bad, she has to strain her face and
neck muscles terribly to get out an utterance, and it still can be
hard to make out -- almost like the way it usually sounds when a
person who's deaf tries to talk.  The amplification is uneven, and
usually low, and the articulation is difficult, and just so so.  At
other times, she can talk clearly but only very softly.  Occasionally,
it's pretty good, but these occasions are becoming more seldom.
 
Anyway, she spends a great deal of time talking on the phone, or would
like to.  Phone communication at present adds additional challenges,
but I'm hoping some of them can be solved.
 
Since she's often very weak, and has poor control of her arm and hand
muscles, it's hard for her to hold the phone right up to her mouth to
get the most out of her voice.  Then, too, she often lets it drop away
from her ears, so she misses hearing the person talking.  Sometimes it
takes her so long to get the phone to her head that the person hangs
up.  (I think for this reason she's taken to saying "hello" while the
handset is just halfway to her head, which can be confusing for the
caller....)
 
All these little upsets can serve to derail her efforts to communicate.
 
What would be great for her would be cordless telephone with a
headphone attachment.  The headphone would let her hear and speak
optimally, and the cordless-telephone part would let her have a
wire-free device to hold in her hand for dialing, switching lines,
putting on hold, and hanging up.  The cordless aspect is important
because she needs it in all the parts of the house she's in, and
because the wires get in the way.  It would also be very useful, for
dialing out, for it to have programmable autodial buttons.  And, also,
a two-line version would be best, since she has two lines.
 
Can anyone tell me if such a telephone exists, or how a substitute
might be fashioned?
 
Thank you.
 
Mark David