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Her recent hearing evaluation showed moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears. The doctor told her that it is the type of hearing loss that hearing aids will help. My mother refuses to discuss hearing aids, won't even attend a free session at the doctor's office to see and discuss the various options. I told her that I would not be screaming into the phone any longer and that I will repeat what I say every time she asks, but that I will not be raising my voice to a shouting level any longer. I just hung up the phone with her a few minutes ago because she said "if you're not going to talk louder then just hang up". This is the tip of the iceberg and I am so frustrated that I have hit burnout on this issue. Let her talk to my brother, the golden boy.

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My mother needs hearing aids, also. She won't get them. She says she can hear just fine if people look right at her and don't mumble. She doesn't even realize people are talking to her.

It is exhausting having to repeat things over and over. Between the hearing, her not processing info and not remembering, I just feel like not conversing with her at all.
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Your mother has dementia, right? Is she still living at her home?

Indeed, let her talk to the Golden Boy.

My husband wore hearing aids before he developed dementia, and continued to do so (with reminders sometimes) throughout the dementia journey. But I honestly don't think he could have learned to use them after the dementia set in. We were just lucky it was already a well-established habit.

Perhaps others can talk about their experiences with starting aids after dementia.

It must be very frustrating to have to shout to be heard. Could mother get some kind of amplification for her phone?
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Thank you for the comments. My mother doesn't have dementia, so far. Or, at least it has never been diagnosed. Her cardiologist told me that she is capable of making her own decisions, even if they are what I consider terrible. My mother has macular degeneration and can't see well enough to use a phone with options. I've suggested getting a new phone with amplification, but she "doesn't need that". I think I'll just get one for her and set the volume myself. Thank you for the idea. Sometimes a solution can seem so simple, yet when I'm inside the vortex I don't think of the obvious.
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My mother in law sounds much like your mother. It’s very frustrating to try to have any conversation with her. Often, she sits and smiles blankly having no idea of the conversation going on around her. She acknowledges her hearing loss but refuses hearing aids. I guess it’s a vanity thing. I have no good advice, just can share in the annoyance part of it
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Took us about a solid year to talk my Mom into hearing aids. She was worried about others seeing them . Frankly it was her vanity talking not her logic and common sense . If it comes up again call her on it
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Guilt, I live my life twice every day. Hubby is constantly saying “Huh?” I’m not sure if it’s an automatic response to give him time to formulate and answer or if he truly doesn’t hear. When it’s been particularly difficult for me to communicate with him that day, I’ll finally yell so loud I make the poor dog bark.

They make such wonderful hearing aids now. No more of those clunky ones with the transistors in the pocket. I hope you find a way to get your mom to understand.
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Thanks again for your comments. I have decided not to mention hearing aids again with my mother. She contradicts me on every single thing I say, so I don't expect she'll get hearing aids simply because I suggested it would be a good idea. Her doctor thinks it's her fear of losing independence. ??? It seems the opposite to me - she would be more independent if she could hear. There is no rational discussion. I need to drop the subject and move on.
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I'm really sorry for your situation. In mine, it's ,y 66 yo hubby who needs and refuses hearing aids. It took me10 years to convince him to just have a simple hearing check. I could STRANGLE the man who did his test, said "Oh, I've seen worse" which to DH means he's not 'that bad'.

I just want to weep---he misses EVERYTHING!!! Every single sentence I say to him is followed by "what?". EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. SENTENCE.

He has so many friends and acquaintances with aids, I do NOT see why he will not get them. He says it will make him look old. Well, for some reason, as his hearing has slowly gone, he'll sit looking like he's in a fog, he looks like he has dementia. His mouth hangs slightly open and usually, when in company, he lies on the sofa or floor and goes to sleep. Can't hear the conversations so he checks out.
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guiltandanger, when my Dad's mother refused to wear hearing aids, my Dad had the whole family start to talk softly or whisper. Eventually that worked :)
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When I realized a few of the ladies at mom's nursing home obviously aren't demented yet will not wear hearing aids, I was and still am stunned. Yes, theft goes on there and confusion, but to make other people have to holler at you is just ridiculous. I actually now avoid two of the ladies there who obviously want to talk just so I don't have to scream back at them. If you can afford to fix a problem that makes it possible to keep contact with the everyday world and you enjoy conversing, why in the world not??
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Ouch, wow, this title stopped me in my tracks.

MidKid58, I soooooooooooooooooooo feel your pain.

My husband, who has dementia, is stone deaf and now sleeps most of the day. So, when he does wake up, he doesn't think about hearing aids. To make along story short, it has just about ruined our relationship. He talks, I answer, he stares at me. I repeat, he stares at me. In his mind, staring is a polite way to ask me to repeat. If I don't repeat, he says ," no, tell me". So I tell him. He stares.

I long ago gave up my true personality with him, which is: lots of jokes, remarks about the news, funny observations, ironic asides. FAHGEDABOUDIT!

I have become as dispassionate as a paid employee. Really sad.

So, I do get it and y'all have my sympathy!
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Oh dear are you all talking about my mother???? I so understand the frustration of having to shout to have a conversation, or repeating many times. It is particularly galling with hospital appointments as she cannot hear the doctors and I have to repeat time & time again AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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As someone who my wife says "you are hard of hearing" at 68, yes hearing does change as you age. For most cases, just make sure you have the person's attention before you start talking and the hearing problems will magically disappear. Just don't start talking "at" someone before you know you have their attention. This process also works with children too. Just say "dear" and then when they acknowledge you, start your communication. I know my hearing is changing, but I hate being told I am hard of hearing when I am not.
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I never understood why my mother and many other elderly people refuse hearing aids. My mother (now deceased) began not hearing well nearly 25 years ago. She would say that people “mumbled” or she could not hear anything in a crowd. This caused her to become deeply isolated, besides her having an introverted personality to begin with. She had a nice pension with great supplemental medical benefits through my deceased father’s government job, which fully covered very good hearing aids. But she still refused, saying a doctor had told her once to just reduce her salt intake and she would regain her hearing. Once the dementia set in, she became belligerent and paranoid and refused to listen to anyone. I finally did convince her after much stress to my family (I’m an only child, so there were no siblings to help) to get a hearing test and eventually a set of the higher-end, almost invisible hearing aids. She had a 60% loss in one ear and a 70% loss of hearing in the other ear. But then she would forgot to charge them every night or refuse to use them or say she lost them in my house. The day she got them she just sobbed on the way home from the hearing center and went into her “I want to die” routine, as she did when she lost her drivers license or we sold her house and moved her into our brand new mother daughter layout home. When she eventually ended up in a memory care unit, she was hooked up with a slimy lawyer through an unethical nursing home and they fought us when I went up for for guardianship. I’ve posted on here before and my horrible story can be read about what happened later. But in a nutshell, the lawyers (who were strangers) got guardianship and stole all of my mother’s assets essentially got away with it. Her two hearing aids somehow disappeared, people would have to go back to screaming at her and she became isolated (including cut off completely from her family). The lawyers eventually got her another set of junky hearing aids a few months before she died, which of course they did not go through my father’s benefits as I had and my mother died completely alone, falling out of her bed with no rails. Hearing aids looked new in the case. This is what happens when greedy strangers take advantage of a weak elderly person with dementia. I don’t know how to stress to you that you can’t allow strangers to take charge of your elderly parent, so if you have to sit down with you brother and come up with a strategy of how to take charge before dementia sets in, do it now. I like the idea /suggestion of talking softly until she realizes that she isn’t hearing anything unless she gets hearing aids. But it may just have to come to a serious talk with her about getting medical proxy. Just make sure you realize that most likely you will be taking on the additional burden of caring and cleaning and charging those hearing aids once she does agree to get them. Just like you would do for a toddler.
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frankie22: "It is particularly galling with hospital appointments as she cannot hear the doctors and I have to repeat time & time again "

I often wonder what goes on in my mother's medical appointments. I am not allowed back to the examining room with her, because she got angry that they talk to me, not her. (Not really true; she was right there in the room and didn't HEAR them.) I think that doctors are saying things to her and just assuming she's heard them (and processed, and will remember). Not so!
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For some folks, wearing a hearing aid means 'everyone will know' and they have some association with a toxic grandparent who wore the old kind (you know, clunky earpiece connected to a battery pack in the shirt pocket.

When I finally got tired of telling everyone in the family that they mumbled, I decided I would make a fashion statement -- I got my hearing aids in purple!

N O B O D Y N O T I C E S.

They're bright purple, I wear my hair pulled back, it would be impossible to miss them ... but people do. If I mention my hearing aids they'll even say, "Oh! I didn't know you wore hearing aids!"

They totally changed my life, by the way.

That thing about 'just look right at me and I'll hear you' -- worked for awhile. But a hearing loss is a hearing loss. When I lost the first 10% what vanished was all the consonants -- especially S and T -- and guessing from the vowels and tone of voice didn't actually work.

Also, in addition to age-related hearing loss, there can also be age-related audio-processing loss (in the brain, I mean) ... which the hearing aids make somewhat less obvious. When I can hear clearly, the audio-processing delay is less of a problem.
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Good hearing aids are very expensive about $5000. And easy to lose. But I have been wearing them since my early 60s. I hope I can continue as dementia develops.
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My mother knew she needed hearing aides....she just refused.
In her final years, i refered to conversation with Mom as "yelling with Mom". On the phone...I would go sit in the car so I wouldn't disturb other people with all the yelling. It was the way it was...

At that age, she was unwilling to change. I asked her why she didn't use hearing aids.... she said people never said anything she wanted to hear any way.
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You're not alone on this. I have the same issue with mom. For years now. I repeat myself over and over....I say it nicely...mom , why don't you put your hearing aid in? Im sure its frustrating for you when you can't follow a conversation and have to keep asking us to repeat ourselves. She says...that thing doesn't work...( it does work btw)...so i too am done repeating...I ignore.
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How about writing what you want to say instead of saying it? Would writing your responses or questions help? If the person asks why you have started writing, tell them....in writing. I realise this doesn't work for the phone or if they can't read your writing, or have comprehension issues. Just start having everyone do this and see if it has any impact. If you didn't know sign language how else would you try to communicate with a deaf person? If there are certain topics that come up all the time why not try having flashcards with the phrases, like, what would you like for lunch, or let's go to the store now, etc. They may not like it, but just try changing the dynamics of the interaction. If you can get others to interact this way it may be more peaceful and at least not upset the pets.
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Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I say raise your voice. Shout if you need to. Your mother has the right to decide which assistive devices she will and won't use, and you're the one cutting off the communication here. If you can provide her with some human connection at the price of having to raise your voice, I say do it. And yes, keep working on her to get the aid -- maybe equate it to glasses, which fewer people have vanity issues about? -- but for me, I only have a few more years to show my mom that I'm willing to treat her with love and respect, and I wouldn't want that to come to an end through a showdown over something that's not my decision to make.
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So been there guilt and anger. My research showed that Alzheimer and/or dementia can come into play because they are manifesting what they "think" they hear, along with paranoia due to this. Once my mother had the hearing aid in and could "really" hear the world, she doesn't go without it. Mom had Medicaid so they only bought one, so see if she is willing to try one. I'm no longer yelling, the TV volume is decent for once and she is happy. Must have been there era.  I totally disagree with serenevannoy! I am talking to mom while in the grocery store, yelling through the phone embarrassing the hell out of myself to get her to hear me. Secondly, I embarrass myself when with friends and talk so loud I have to be told to bring it down a few notches.  Our elderly only know what they witnessed with elderly in their era.  Not sure why the big hiccup but explaining to Mom that all the medical technology today is allowing her to remain independent as her existence will allow.  My Mom knows I work hard to help her remain in our home and be independent, but she has her part to do.
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One note about the loss of audio-processing, that MaggieMae mentioned. This can happen independently of the actual hearing loss, but more often is the RESULT of the hearing loss. If you don't have that input from the ears the neuorogical proccessing "loses practice" for lack of a better explanation. It's a simple matter of "use it or lose it". And since hearing loss happens slowly, you've been losing your ability to understand sounds for a long time already when the family finally convinces the hard of hearing person to get the aids. The result is that, they put the aid in and still can't understand what is being said. Their brains have literally forgotten how to understand sound. Now if they haven't neglected this for too long , it can be relearned. (And just like anything else, the dementia brain doesn't learn this as easily as a normal brain.) This is why the audiologists usually insist that the patient wear the hearing aid all day, for minimum 30 days, maybe twice that, to allow the brain time to learn to make sense of sound again. This is important even if, and especially if the aids don't seem to help at first. The harded part the that relearning for the brain is being able to learn how to pay attention selectively (ie: how to not hear the refridgerator hum, but still hear people talk.) ....All that said, I was never able to convince my dad to wear them, no amount of arguement, explanation, begging, pleading bribing or threatening ever made one damn bit of difference. When I told him that he was invited to dinner, on condition he wore the hearing aid, he came without. When I picked him up for doctor's appointments, I said, "Don't get in this car if you don't have your hearing aid in " He tapped the opposite side of his head, and lie, "I have it". Then when we got to the doctor's he was deaf as always, pretending to understand the doctor, saying "yes" to having symptoms that he didn't have. He nearly had the doctor ordering some very potent medications that were in fact contraindicated by his actual condition. I wish all who are dealing with this, far more luck than I ever had.
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My father refused to try hearing aids for years past the point he needed them. He had a fall, was hospitalized and diagnosed with dementia. Then, finally, he accepted a low cost hearing aid. It's been nearly two years since that fall and I've learned that a hearing impairment can contribute to dementia. His short term memory has been improving, and he's gone from isolating himself at home to engaging regularly with family.
I know that doesn't answer how to get someone to try/accept hearing aids, and that's a question I still can't answer. I'm going through the same denial/refusal with my Mom now. But if I can get her to try hearing aids, I like to think her dementia decline might at least slow down. I think lots of people forget how important hearing and communication is to being part of the world around us. Good luck.
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This is SO frustrating. I know how you feel. My 75 yr old husband will not get hearing aides which have been recommended by a physician and audiologist. I have to repeat everything I say. He misunderstands so many things that others say to him simply because he is missing key syllables or mistaking letter sounds. Yes, I would say have your brother talk to her. Maybe she will listen to him. Tell her it wears you out to repeat things and to raise your voice every time. It would be different if she were meeting you half way by getting the aides. My sister has progressive hearing loss, & gladly wears 2 aides. I don't mind repeating anything to her because she's done her part. Can't get through to my husband. Totally not fair to others around him.
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And one more note: I firmly believe that shouting and turning the TV volume uncomfortably high, is the absolute wrong thing to do. Read my post above, and you'll see why. The longer the hard of hearing person continues without audio input, the worse their ability to understand sound becomes, and the more difficult, it will be to correct with the aids later. I firmly think that families should insist as early as possible, that their loved one get the hearing aids as soon as any sign of hearing loss occurs. And not just to improve the probabilty that hearing aid will be able to help, but more importantly to prevent further dementia. It is know fact that lack of sensory input increases the dementia. The isolation that occurs as a result of not hearing conversations, not being aware of the world around them, not having the stimulation of entertainment, all add to the mental deterioration. And most of all the recommendation to just keep on shouting , is no help at all to families who have been shouting at the tops of their lungs for years, maybe decades. And doesn't stop the damage being done to the hearing of all the other members of the household, from listening to TV and music, etc at unsafe decibel levels. The longer you keep shouting, the more you enable the development of an unhealthy situation.
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My 90 year old Papa was positive that his hearing was just fine - until he went to Rehab and everyone around him mumbled. So, we finally convinced to get hearing aids and 6 months later, he is at home and has stopped wearing them. He swears he just had them in yesterday, when of course it was a month ago! So I’m not sure it was a good investment after all. But that tv volume, set on 65, sure makes my nerves jangle.
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I 100% agree with those who REFUSE to accommodate the "deaf by choice" among us. WHY should I have to ruin my vocal chords by talking so loudly I am hoarse by the end of the day b/c DH won't LOOK at me when I talk? Why should everyone else have to shout and repeat themselves? Why does the TV have to be turned up so loudly that I get phone calls from my neighbors asking me to turn it down? (I am not even in the room!) WHY should I get flashcards or a white board to communicate with some one who is simply being a pill? My g-kids always come to ME to ask for anything, they know Papa is checked out. He spends most of his downtime on FB, trolling around and being annoying. More than one person has asked me if he is "OK" b/c he has the mannerisms of a person with dementia--simply b/c he chooses to live in the dark.

My kids harangue him about this--and he turns it on me, says I tell them to talk to him about, when in fact, I have NEVER said anything to them about helping me help him.

His mother is about as deaf as he is. A conversation between the two of them is a comedic delight.
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careinhome, if someone has to get your attention to get you to listen you DO need hearing help. I'm only 64 and what you are calling normal hearing loss is happening to me, too -- but it can be corrected with a hearing aid. There's no need to frustrate others with one's denial. And you can get the same hearing aids that would normally cost $5000 at Costco for $2000. I have a friend who has been hearing impaired for decades and he's tested both. He loves saving the $3000. My mom has the Costco ones and they are life-changing for all of us!!! We can now have normal conversations.
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Its very hard at her age to get used to hearing aides. Most have some form of arthritis in their hands and have a problem putting in batteries and using the little wheels to adjust hearing levels and background noises. My Mom had tubes that entered the ear, didn't like them and had molds made. Had a hard time with them. They don't realize there is adjusting that needs to be made. Doesn't work, get rid of them. My husband has been wearing a form of hearing aid since 4 or 5. His mold didn't fit right so the tech shaved it down. Mom never wore hers. They still work. For her, its a waste of money. Not paid by Medicare.

My suggestion is to by a special phone for Mom. My husbands has a button where he sets his volume so when a call comes in, he pushes his button and the volume is at the level he can hear. See if they have hearing impaired phones that you can set the level to where its comfortable for Mom. For TV watching there are TV ears and headphones you can hook up to the TV.

Maybe if you stop yelling Mom will realize she has a problem.
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