My 91 yr old mother just moved into AL. She is afraid to eat in the dining room or go to activities because of her very poor hearing. I literally have to shout in her ear or write things down. She has an aid she got about 15 years ago she only wore a about 5 times. I don't even know if she can get results from one any more her hearing has declined so much. Her arthritis makes it impossible for her to insert or adjust. Has anyone else had success with a longtime resisted? Ironically, her own sister owned a hearing aid business!
2. the aids are tiny and with her arthritis she cant manipulate them very well to put in her ears. I suspect she doesn't have a lot of feeling in her fingertips.
When she was in the nursing home hearing aid people visited the place and gave her a hearing test. I subsequently discovered she'd ordered hearing aids to the tune of $4,000! She said she thought she'd just give them a try as they were free. I had POA and I knew she wouldn't wear them so I cancelled it.
She also called the bank and tried to order cheques (I attended to paying all bills) but they saw my POA on file and refused. By then her dementia was really bad and she was pretty much bed ridden. The office held $300 for her use and I made sure she had a lot of change for the vending machine. It was a never ending nightmare.
Then Dad would see an advertisement in the newspaper for hearing aid that goes inside the ear and stays there for 3 months before needing to be replaced, and wanted us to take Mom there.... I told him the ear doctor told me those hearing aids are for people who are first losing their hearing. We went around and around on that, too. I refused to go shopping for those types of hearing aids.
Even when we found regular hearing aids that would work while in the audiologist office, it seemed the hearing aids wouldn't work the next day. Oh boy, here we go with user error. Mom was afraid to place the inside of the hearing aid too far into her ear. And, of course, Dad would be messing with the batteries, even using used batteries that still had a tiny amount of juice left in them :P
Rosy, I use to have to shout into Mom's good ear, and even then she would only catch 20% of what I said. I honestly think she would have done better having an old fashioned ear horn to use.
The other side of my story - it took me 3 years to convince my hubby to get aids. I was so sick of repeating everything I said, hated to watch tv with him at the volume he needed. So he finally gets the aids, and most of the time - doesn't wear them - so I am still repeating myself all day long. It is so irritating when it is unnecessary. At least if we watch tv he wears them so I'm not blasted out of the room.
He claims he forgets them. If so, that is part of your mother's problem too. Putting them in every morning needs to become a habit. If she is in AL, they can help with that - they put Mom's new ones in every morning.
I've filed all this away in my brain so when I can't hear I won't be so stubborn!