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Has anyone experienced elderly parents who state they can hear you, but cannot understand you and they feel left out and angry when they can't get what you are saying? I am prety good about speaking up and making sure she hears me and understands me, but the rest of my families members are not and it frustrates her.

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All hearing-impaired people can "hear" to some extent.....some more than others. However it's speech sounds that they cannot understand. These are mostly high frequency sounds that cannot be enhanced by a hearing aid or any other device for that matter. Closed Captioning is a blessing. you must begin to use gestures.
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My father o. Law lives with is and he has 2 hearing aids, still can't hear. I took him to audiologist and she said nothing more they can do. He hears the voice but cannot make out the words. We use closed caption and the volume is up. close caption moves pretty fast for an old guy. I think it this is why he enjoys music so much. Lawrence Welkom is his favorite show and he also has a bunch of Andre Ruhl DVD's. Music really calms him down too when he is anxious.
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I took my youngest son to an audiologist, and she did not understand the fact that he needed speech discrimination in his hearing aids. All the hearing aid dealers want to provide is amplification ( loudness). I want an additional hearing aid that will provide speech discrim and close-up only amplification. Just as a myopic-sighted person needs close-up glasses, a deaf person needs close-up amplification also. He already has aids that will provide hearing across the room and around the corner....loud! Don't tell me that the same aids can do both. I've already tried them on myself and all I get is loudness.
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The easiest way to be heard by your mother is not by speaking louder but by standing in front of her, face to face and enunciating words to the best of your ability. Lots of mouth, lip motion. This will bring out the language of the consonants. Good luck.
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Go to an audiologist. Get two new hearing aids that amplify high-frequency sounds ( speech). She'll love them.
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The statement of a hard of hearing person who says' "I hear you but I don't understand you" is readily explainable. No magic answers required.

Speech consists of two languages put together in a coded fashion, like the Morse Code of dots and dashes. Instead of dots and dashes we have vowels and consonants formed into coding. It so happens the consonants are many times quieter than the vowels and these to the deafened person are the first sounds of speech which disappear. There goes the loss of understanding, because now they are hearing just the one language, the language of the vowels. Without both parts of the speech, the vowels and the consonants, there is no understanding.
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what good advice I try to do the same with my mom and it works almost most of the time. Things are getting better once I implemented changes in myself and how I handle things.
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We have three loved ones who are cognitively impaired. Each struggles with hearing but not understanding. Due to Vascular Dementia, Alzheimer's or mental illness, they'll never learn ALS or thorough comprehension. We have to muddle through the best we can with compassion and smiles which reach across the miles of misfiring synapses. It's tough, but love, empathy, and God's grace are helpful in terms of their decline. Once they reach a certain point, it is us who must learn to bridge the gap, not them. Eye contact, body language, a gentle touch or warm embrace help loads. And each situation is individual. There is no set guidlines, except to just keep trying.
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I've aways said that ASL ( American Sign Language ) is not just for the hearing impaired. It is an ideal way to communicate with the sick, the physically disabled, those passing each other in a car, boat, train, bus etc., and of course those in a hospital with intubation, those in ICU, CCU, and those stroke victims who have diificulty communicating with speech. This list goes on.
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With my mother who has AD, she gets lost in conversation, she can't keep up and gets very paranoid and feels left out. She even starts to think that we're talking about her, laughing at her. She started this early on in the disease and even in the late stages responds the same way. I'm very careful to say something to her every few minutes to keep her thinking that she's included if there is conversation going on. She gets very, very upset and angry, even now, if she doesn't feel included. She does much better one on one.
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SOME COMIC RELIEF:
Wouldn't it be great if American Sign Language became our "official" second language and had to be learned by every school student and all people who serve the public! Then when we older folks start losing our hearing our grand kids, friends, and other family members could just sign to us when we complained that we can't hear them. Of course it would take an act of Congress to pass this law, but given all the other items being passed about in the Helath Care reform bill, a sharp politician could tack this on to something like the Medicare Preservation amendment and get it passed without a fuss :-))))
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Yes, she does have some dementia setting in based on her behavior while I was taking care of her and from what my psychiatrist sister has observed. Of course she has refused to be testsed. I just wish that my sister and her kids would take the time to go visit, have a conversation with her and make sure she understands what they are saying, stay there a while, and actually listen to her when she is talking to them and pay attention to her. Part of it is this thing that kids have nowadays that they don't respect their elders and don't want to pay attention to them. Kids now speak so fast and mumble so much that even I have trouble understanding them. Part of my sister's problem though is she is working too many hours, has the cell phone and is on call a lot and gets distracted and runs at high speed being a doctor, and I guess that will continue in order to pay the nursing home bills.
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Good advice, I try to put myself in her shoes I don't know what I'll be like when I get to be 83 but I will have the operations and or hearinf aids regardless. Sometimes people think they know best in actuallity they are hurting themselves thats my mom! As for being tested for dementia haha I know mom if she won't have her cataracts removed and didn't take care of her hearing years ago she will NOT be tested for dementia although I know that has started along time ago I suggested to her doctor when she kept running back and forth and they could find nothing wrong with her that she talk to a therapist well when he suggested that she blew out of there like hurricane Katrina no lying. You see my mm is arcissistic therefore she is reaping what she has sown but I have to do my best for her not just for her but for myself as well.
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Stand in front of the person who has a hearing problem. Get their attention by a light touch or other means. Speak a bit louder than normal while you are looking at each other. It is a bit of a chore--or so we think--but once the person is focused on you, they can usually determine what you're saying. Speaking when your
back is turned, speaking when there are background noises, and speaking over a distance will always cause a communication problem!
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It could be her hearing, but it could be dementia - people with dementia can often hear just fine, but can't make sense of the words. Has she had a workup for dementia?

Carol
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At some point in time, it becomes more difficult for someone who is hard of hearing to understand because they also cannot disseminate information as quickly and are often unaware of the topic. This is true even if there is no hearing loss. You have to explain each part of the conversation which puts a burden on the flow when other people are involved and can frustrate everyone. It can be difficult to realize that the mind can be sharp in many ways yet dull in others. I find it most difficult to try to help someone who denies any problems and points the fingers at others for their lack of understanding, hearing, sight, remembering, etc. The key is for all family members to be on the same page and know that things are different and accept the changes in their loved one. It helps when each support the other.
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Because we have the heart of God within us
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Why do we do this? Try to control things that are not ours to control? I am saying this because I do the same thing. Why do we not take care of ourselves. Who made this our obligation? It infuriates me as a people pleaser. I can't control it , and it just makes me want to do it that much more.
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Yes, she does have a hearing aid, however it is about 20 years old, and probably could use one in the other ear also. She could have gotten a new one while she had the money, but her priorities were all mixed up, she wanted to do things like spoiling her boyfriend, redecorating, traveling, etc. when she should have been getting a new hearing aid. Of course now that she is in the nursing home she does not have the money for it. I find that I have to repeat myself over and over again for her to understand what I am saying. I am pretty good about speaking up, but she gets upset with my sister and her children because they don't speak up so she can understand them. Then it results in her complaining to me about my sister and the children not being nice to her and I have to try to explain it away (caught in the middle). Right now she is accusing us of putting one over on her when she was sent to the nursing home, even though I explained it throuoghly to her and thought she had understood what was going on, causing me a big problem now as she is suing us for putting her there and wants her property and checkbook back. Hopefully the judge will understand what is going on with her. A lot of times a simple misunderstanding or not totally realizing what a person is saying can cause a big family fight. The only thing I can do now is pray that this will all work out and our family will be able to have a the Holidays together without all this fighting and getting me caught in the middle.
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I took my mom to hearing specialist two years ago to be tested she had been hard of hearing for at least 40 years well her hearing is so bad almost nil that the doc said she isn't even a candidate for a hearing aid now its her eyes, she won't get new glasses although the money has been provided for her over the last 20 years so she uses a pair of store bought glasses with a magnifying glass to read. she has cataracts that should have been removed two years ago but refuses so she can not see anything she spills or bread crumbs or anything like that yet she tells me she can hear just fine and there isn't anything wrong with her eyesight okay maybe I am seeing here differently ? who knows its always me anyway so yet she said yesterday she wants to go back into her own place an apartment somewhere well this is the 4th time she's said that and she's the one who wanted to come live with me. so I am just going to ignore that because she can't live on her own anymmore If I walk into a room and say something she doesn't even hear me only if she can see my face than it has to be repeated very slowly about 4 or 5 times but she can hear God Bless her.
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Have you had them tested for hearing loss? Or even cognitive impairment? If they can't understand you, is it because others talk to fast???? Sometimes this is the major culprit not the hearing but as we age our synapsis slow down and it takes us longer to understand what is being said. Ode to be young again :)
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Get a hearing aid, or two. People with impaired hearing complain that they can hear, but cannot understand what the speaker is saying.
Also, leave the Closed Captions on the TV.
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