My wonderful but stubborn 78 year old mother has always had hearing problems, but never wanted to wear a hearing aid. Her hearing has gotten worse now and every single conversation is two conversations now. Me saying something. Her saying "pardon, I didn't hear you" and me repeating it. This goes on all day long. She does it with my children and with other people. Why? Because she can't hear them.
About 3 years ago she relented and bought two hearing aids. She then took back the one for "the bad ear" (both ears are bad really!) and kept the one for "the good ear" which she then lost and found a few times. She never wore the hearing aid at all except in the movie theater. Her hearing has been noticeably worse over the past few months and I have encouraged, reasoned, begged, pleaded, cajoled, asked her to wear it because she can't hear. Her responses range from "if people would just look at me when they talk to me I can hear them." to "I can hear fine - it's when people start mumbling I can't hear."
Okay people, I know she is in denial. So anyway we went back to the hearing aid center (actually twice in the past month) and the guy there tried his very best to convince her that she has a problem. He tested her hearing. He even compared it to ours so she could tell the difference. He played a sound track on the computer and she saw us raise our hands earlier than her. Still not convinced, he put her hearing aid in and she acknowledged that she could hear the sound earlier. He did everything he possibly could to get her to admit she has a problem. She varied from "there are people in my family with hearing loss when I was growing up" to the absurd, "you are all ganging up on me."
I am sick and tired of banging my head up against her brick wall. Why won't she admit she has a problem and do something about it? Me and my 2 adult daughters, and the guy at the hearing aid center, have all told her repeatedly that this is putting a strain on our relationship with her and to "please just wear the damn thing" but she refuses to.
I honestly don't think that she realizes how many times she says "pardon, what did you say?" etc..,
And God forbid when I might say "Mom, put your hearing aid in" after she says that because she just gets VERY angry and defensive.
Has anyone gone through this?
And what do I say next time she says "Pardon?" because honest to God, she says it at least 95 percent of the time and I am at wit's end.
I've been very worried about her memory for quite some time now. Each time I've expressed concern to her doctor, he says shes fine and its normal for her age. Personally I dont find it normal that shes so forgetful and repeats the same questions over & over again throughout the day. I dont know if its normal or not for someone who suffers from memory loss, but she totally dwells on not being able to remember things. It started a couple years ago after my aunt passed away from alzheimers and I know that she feared the same thing happening to her ever since. Not to sound cold but I'm wondering if she's convinced herself that it has, or if she's actually suffering from dementia. Either way, something is definitely wrong.
I do know that she suffering from depression brought on by my siblings who no longer have anything to do with her. Shes also disgusted (her word) with her health problems and not being able to do things for herself like she used to. I've been trying to figure out a way to help her but havent figured out the key to opening that door.
I really wish I knew of a doctor who was more open minded for her, but I know that she totally rejects the idea of going to anyone other then who she has now.
She did go back again yesterday to the place where she got the hearing aids from and another mold was done just in case there may be something off with the fit. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll find them to be worth the effort of wearing them this time around.
I appreciate the doc my mom has as not only does she care about my mom's health (and was my Dad's doc as well) she has listened to ME as the primary caregiver and has heard MY fears. I have to say I am blessed with the best communication between doc's office and myself than I think I have with my own ha ha. This doc is fabulous.
The fear I have (nothing to do with hearing aids but I know I can share this as well): 10/28 my Mom has appt. The goal for the past month has been to gain weight (she lost 15#s in one year~nice for some but she only weighed 115 a year ago) and also to socialize at the local senior center. She has gained NOT ONE OUNCE in two weeks and she REFUSES to go out other than when I or a family member or caregiver takes her. As we were leaving the doc office a couple of weeks ago the doc whispered to me "we will talk about facilities next time". Actually my mom had her hearing aids on that day and didn't hear that at all. I feel this way about the future: should my Mom need a facility for cognitive decline I would be ok with that as it is getting more and more increasingly difficult to repeat, repeat, repeat (disrespect as she won't wear the hearing aids), worry about her health (she doesn't care if she eats why should I?), and and care if she has "friends" (I can't be her only one). One day of NOT hearing "huh" would be fine with me.
I told my mom once that I won't repeat, if she doesn't hear my the first time because she doesn't have her hearing aids in that's too bad, and I definitely will not raise my voice.
I have repeated today...that will stop tomorrow. Please remind me to NOT repeat, as I do click automatically into that mode...like a knee jerk response.
This post has been so very helpful to me. Thanks, Karen for starting it.
Peg
Yeah, you get the picture.
Peg, I envy you!
Now...I just put them in his ears. No questions asked. There is no choice. I tell him I want to talk and not have to yell.
I agree they are like glasses which my mom doesn't need to wear (she can see far) but does wear them because she didn't want to get reading glasses for up close. ha ha
Will we ever figure this age out? Before we get to be this age?
1. Get their hair done in the universal beehive like way
2. Move very very slowly (I used to call my mother the Energizer bunny because she never stopped moving. Now she moves four times slower than we do poor thing)
3. What is so very bad about wearing a hearing aid.
So Peg, when (if) I make it to 70 something or 80 something, I'll let you know the answers to these questions!!
Now - imagine what would happen if I was really a little old lady with enough cognitive impairment or unable to get back to the audiologist immediately to explain what was wrong.
My Mom too will not wear her hearing aid (she lost one, which she of course blames on me). I've gotten so used to talking so loudly to her that everyone else must wonder why I'm screaming at them. I get SO SO tired of repeating myself over and over again. You'd think they'd get tired of not being able to hear. I don't get it at all. Sometimes I don't even bother repeating myself when what I originally said was inconsequential.
I wish I had a suggestion for you, but I don't because I haven't found anything that works. I figure if I can tell my Mom she needs to drink more liquid so she doesn't end up in the hospital yet again because she's dehydrated and she can ignore me, then encouraging her to wear her hearing aid would prove of little value.
Let's all try to keep finding some humor in it all!
When it comes to a matter of life and death, you may need to get professionals to step in and explain how serious it is to not be able to hear a fire alarm, for instance. One of my parents wears one and is so grateful for the hearing help- the other one refuses to wear one, and it's getting ridiculous to have to drive somewhere to speak IN PERSON because they can't hear on the phone!
vstefans, it is important to hear the perspective of another HoH senior. Thank you for sharing yours. It seems as though you have at least tried to get used to the hearing aids.
However, although I will concede that not repeating oneself to a HoH person may evoke unpleasant emotions in the one with the hearing impairment, I also must point out that this is the heart of the problem: Those frustrating, obstinate, self-centered HoH people who tend to feel more for themselves than the people who try, with increasing futility, to accommodate their inabilities to hear.
. After years and years of shouting and, in the last several years, having to practically press my lips to my mothers ear canal to enable her to hear me, the results are in: I no longer possess the reserves of endurance I had in those years gone by. I am older now, too, and tired. It's a shame that a huge part of my weariness at this time no longer comes exclusively from my kids, an abusive ex-spouse, money problems, depression, etc., etc., but seems to spring from continued efforts to communicate with my elderly mother.
It's just too bad my elderly "loved one" can't think of me, my sister and the other "victims" as we all struggle to communicate with he while she continues, garrulous and inconsiderate, using us as interpreters all the while feeling sorry for herself because she feels "left out, invisible, excluded while others talk in front of her, etc. etc." But, why should she try a hearing aid? Besides being cost prohibitive (she is a WWII Navy Veteran), not "working" well according to anyone she knows who has tried them, she offered the following as another reason for shunning hearing aids. "No one has anything to say that I want to hear anyway."
Quite telling, no?
It may be that cognitively they can't grasp how hard they are making things or are losing perspective; the last comment could be a sour grapes type of thing. Is there any chance that writing things down instead of talking could help? I do remember how fatiguing it was to have to talk real loud and still get yelled at for "mumbling" - and how funny it would be when normal-hearing people came in and I'd forget to turn down my voice volume for them. I guess it was a good thing Mom never quite realized the extent of her problem because she liked for conversations to be private, and I suspect pretty much the whole wing could hear us.
Our music director and fellow musicians at church know about my hearing problem - years ago I actually brought in my audiogram to show them, so they realized it was not just "not listening" when I could not tell I was too soft (funny you'd think you'd end up too loud, but you sound way louder to yourself than other people sound to you) and they don't mind just hand-signaling when my volume perception is off now. But i do get asked if I am wearing my "ears" when I'm needing to ask anyone to repeat anything!! I usually am, and I always tell the truth on that (the aids I have are BTW with a slim tubes and just about invisible, so I COULD get away with lying :-) But I just had a couple really good hearing days where I was not doing too badly even without the aids, and with them I felt I was hearing close to normal - I really enjoyed it! I could even hear the monitor a little while singing in choir. Tell mom a friend says they are worth trying even if they don't work great all the time. :-)
And - hugs - you are sure going through a rough time with everything. It does not sound like anyone close to you is giving you any support, and they are all clueless that you need a little, instead of just being the one giving to them all the time.
I feel sad for all of the conversations that she could have heard, but didn't allow herself to. She knew she was hard of hearing, but always refused to believe that it was bad enough for a hearing aid. Does that make sense to any of you? She has 50% hearing loss. Pretty significant.
She lives with me now and is a fall risk as well. I need to monitor her every movement to make sure she uses the walker, or she will fall. I have trained myself to face her (so she can see my lips) and speak loudly. I love my mother very much but I don't have the patience (on top of everything else I do for her) to repeat, repeat, repeat any more. I don't talk to her as much as I do to a person of normal hearing because I just can't repeat everything twice.
If only she had put away her pride and put on her hearing aid.
Hopefully I'm not coming off as selfish. If you think I am you repeat every thing you say twice today and see how exhausting it is. Then continue to do that for the next twenty plus years!!
I make sure to say to her every day that I love her. And I am proud to say that quite loudly!!
The only practical things I can think of to help, which you are probably already doing, are to make sure background noise is minimal, if its the usual sensorineural loss greater for high frequencies, lower your pitch a little ("cheerleader voice") though that is pretty difficult and can seem unnatural, and if she gives any indication of getting parts of what you say, only repeat the words she did not get. I have one female colleague at work who has a low voice naturally, and if she's dictating or talking on the phone, it just about drowns out anyone else I am trying to hear, like our soft-spoken young female residents. And I thought of the last one because my son typically repeats the whole thing, even the part I repeat back to him that I got, and by the time he has done that, forgets to say the part I missed any differently. I sometimes get exasperated having to explain over and over why it is the wrong approach and reminding him "I got everything but the last word, Michael" - at which point, still being a teenager at heart though he's 20 he will usually YELL the whole thing making it even less intelligble...then I get to go "OK. OK, that last word - it sounded like [blather] and I know you said something else - why don't you just spell it?" And of course spelling will not likely work when someone has dementia. My mom had stopped reading too, even large print, so we did not have that option either.
I was very sad as my mom lost abilities too - at first it was baffling why she quit doing so many things she used to love despite the "reasons" she had for it, (e.g. "I hate bingo" and "there's nothing any good on" TV) but when she did not "want" to look at grandkid pictures anymore it broke my heart because it was a loss of the one way to make her happy that I had always relied on so much, and I had to realize it was cortical vision loss from her strokes. About the only thing we had left was going out to eat...occasionally she would enjoy a holiday or patriotic music program or a push through the garden.
So , you are absolutely right to save your voice and your energy for the simple, important stuff. This is a hard and sad road. You know how they say "if life gives you lemons..." well, It was like trying to squeeze enough juice out of dried out ones to make lemonade. We did our best at it, and I can tell you are doing yours too! HUGS.
My wife and I pray to God every day that he will help us with all these issues, cause I just want my mom to live out her life the best way we can help her do that. We actually have a lot of fun and laugh alot , but we have to yell in order for her to here. I have to go , but thank all of you for posting your stories, as I will be back....regards,