E10 - The Effects of Noise on Dining Room Occupants Across Community Types
(Room Meeting Room 14)
29 Aug 21
11:15 AM
-
12:15 PM
Tracks:
Planning + Design
Residents of senior living communities have a high incidence of hearing impairments, which produce quality of life issues in noisy dining rooms. Being unable to comprehend speech in noise is a common problem that limits enjoyment, communication, and well-being. This presentation explores alleviation of this problem through good architectural practices and engineering calculations that include determining the quantity of sound-absorbing acoustical treatments, the number of seats per table, the distance between speaker and listener, the distance between tables, noise barrier options, and isolation of sound sources. While these design improvements benefit people of all hearing abilities, they are of particular importance to people with hearing impairments.