Severe hearing loss. My father's hearing aids don’t seem to help, they only add to frustration. How do we deal with tv and phone?

There are hearing aids that adjust for phone and TV. He also might do well with head phones to cancel out surrounding noise so he can focus.

My mom 89, no longer wears hearing aides. With Lewy Body dementia she put a HA battery deep in the ear canal pushing it with a qtip…and by the time we found it ..it was corroded. A severe infection. We decided the risk was not worth the damage she was doing to herself…..On a phone call she uses a speaker close to her ear..that works. The TV is on captions and loud! She is in an assisted living..

My grandfather had hearing aids and he would often turn them down or off because he did not want to hear what people were saying. People were always telling him to do something

TNtechie, The part about starting out slowly is a good one. But, u should be able to drown out background noises to a point. Thats the one good feature about digital.

My understanding is that when someone waits too long to get hearing aids, they become unaccustomed to background noises they haven't heard for several years. The brain doesn't like all the "extra" noise and it makes using the aids difficult. People are advised to wear the aids for limited amounts of time at first and to keep increasing the amount of time until they can wear the aids as long as they need. My father was never able to wear his aids for longer than about 15 minutes, but maybe it had something to do with his vascular dementia starting.

I have hearing issues from childhood but since my speech was not effected doctors believe the problem started around age 5 when I had several ear infections and ruptured ear drums. I was taught lip reading in elementary school. Today when an audiologist tunes the volume perfectly (as part of most recent hearing test) I can correctly identify 89% of the words spoken. Because I can catch some words from lip reading and my mind is quick enough to interpret the "missing" words, I generally do okay, although if someone faces away from me while speaking I will probably ask them to repeat. I wear my hearing aids every single day from waking to midday (at least) and from after school to bedtime. I find the aids become uncomfortable in my ears after several hours. When I am alone I often turn the volume on the TV louder (about 20%) and when watching TV with the kids without the aids I turn on the closed captioning. I have found a simple hack can be helpful: a baby monitor placed close to the TV with the receiving monitor placed on a bedside table helps a lot when I don't want to wear the aids or have the TV loud. I have an electronic grand piano that I can wear headphones when playing where the "noise" is inconsiderate of others. Other times you may be blasted by the sounds from my 120+ year old vertical grand piano or my 60+ year old "modern" console or maybe even my antique pump organ... my mother used to love to listen to my playing, even practices.

One of my elderly relatives has nerve damage in their ear. No hearing aid can ever help. Maybe take him to doctor to see if the nerve in his ear still functions.
( I forget the name of nerve. Ha ha ha!).

My DH has the most advanced techie hearing aids they make. Cost us $6K.

He NEVER wears them. Says people mumble, TV is not loud enough, etc.

Problem I'm facing now is that to talk to him, even in a very simple conversation, I have to FIND him, make sure he is looking at me, that there is no other sound going on (TV, ALexa, computer) and I say my bit--then I have him repeat it back to me so I know he 'gets it'. Even then, sometimes I'm not sure he DOES get it.

The other day we went car shopping (oh, please, shoot me now!) and he was talking to the salesman and completely talking OVER him to the point the poor guy couldn't get a word in edgewise. It was awful. So he was angry b/c he felt the salesman was being hedgy and he wasn't--he was being quite polite and DH was the one whose voice was escalating in tone.

He just simply refuses to wear the aids. He told me to stop bugging him about it. So I did.

He misses all the fun--all the funny things the kids and grandkids say. He can't hear the speakers in church and he cannot hear highway noise--(think emergency vehicles right behind you!).....

And he gets mad very easily b/c he simply doesn't hear. His hearing loss has gotten MUCH worse than it was and he is angry a lot--b/c he simply misses so much and then says "what's going on?"

If it were only the TV, I could deal. It's every second he's awake.

There is literally NOTHING I can do to encaourage him to learn to wear these. No amount of kindness or anger works. And I know I am not alone in this.

Funny (not funny) his mother is as deaf as he is, and when he goes to see her he is yelling to have her hear. He complains to me and I say "Yep, I know EXACTLY how frustrating that is".

I have given up trying to get him to try. If he doesn't hear me or others speaking, then that's his problem, but it hurts my feelings so deeply that he doesn't care enough about me an what I have to say to even TRY to use the h/a's.

TV Ears was the best $80 I ever spent on Amazon. No cords and I can hear myself think now. My 91 year old dad was reluctant at first, but now accepting. Aging and losing one's independence is tough. I have to keep reminding myself.

I got my Dad a set of headphones for the TV — the kind gamers use — and he loves them. He struggled with bluetooth so we got a wired pair that hooks into the TV. It doesn't help with the phone but he seems to be able to hear that bit better and he spends more time with the TV anyway.

hearing aids - didn't work for my daddy, I was going to get him tv ears or headphones that hook up to the tv when he took a turn for the worst and I ended up not buying them. It looks like others have suggested tv ears try it-amazon you can always check the return policy, costco east returns!

There are aids to help with TV, TV Ears is one. Go online and you will be able to find solutions. There are phones that type out what the other person is saying. If he can still read it will help.

Dickmo: His audiologist should be able to assist him with adjusting the aids, removing wax and providing a hearing test. If all else fails, perhaps he would be a candidate for cochlear implants depending on his age and other health factors.

For the last couple months we thought my 91 year old dad was losing his hearing. Turned out to be wax. Sooooo relieved. Just a thought.

I have been dealing with hearing loss for several years. It is very frustrating. And I have been to all the hearing companies in Albuquerque!

However hearing devices that our insurance pays for ARE available and include better interactive 👂on the phone, TV, even hearing aids that click into Bluetooth systems like a movie theater or concert hall! All that available, with no money out of pocket! I strongly suggest the “Hear on Earth” company. Kyle Bamberg. Located on Menaul just west of Wyoming. (505) 247-3277

Tell them Linda Fish sent you! You will love their excellent, kind service and superior quality hearing aids with no hassle insurance coverage! Hearing loss doesn’t have to be complicated anymore. Especially if you want overall better hearing fir the tablet or phone to talk to the G’kids.

My husband loves his TV Ears. They really work!

Try one more time. Go to Costco and get fitted for their Kirkland best. You have a long trial period (years) and can return them for a full refund. Suggest staying away from smart phones and the like. Have the Costco hearing specialist work their magic in the booth so when Dad comes home all he has to do is change the batteries every 5 days. Wishing you and Dad all the best.

Try a personal amplifier, i.e. Ultra Personal Sound Amplifier Duo Pack System, one example:

https://www.parentgiving.com/shop/williams-sound-pocketalker-ultra-personal-sound-amplifier-duo-pack-system-6796/p/13851/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=pmax&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwtWgBhDhARIsAEMcxeCWgypjcGBHBw4Bbwpr3JHQva-ubjqMZqe5cXFYFbxzKW77VIME-PEaAtJtEALw_wcB

My mom is basically deaf in one ear and has maybe 40% in the other. We did finally get her a hearing aid which she will wear sometimes but she is so used to not hearing things that being able to hear overwhelms her. For the TV we have a splitter that allows her to hear it with an earbud which she really likes. The sound can be on or off in the room. The phone and the TV can be hooked up to her hearing aid too and she also likes that however she isn’t able to put it in on her own the way she can the earbud and she can hear everything else going on in the room too which she doesn’t like, lol. She will tell us the hearing aid isn’t helping anymore which means it needs to be cleaned so if your dads aids helped at first perhaps they need to be cleaned, it’s amazing how much difference a little wax makes!

Closed captions, tv and text messages, phone and/ or emails...
Also confer with a deaf society group perhaps in your area or national group may have more help , suggestions. Gauledet ( sp?) University in Washington DC is a campus that uses exclusively sign language and is for deaf students
( open to anyone to attend but everything is done in sign language).
You may want to contact them for possible referrals, suggestions. They are an amazing place and, most likely would have current information on systems, support etc for deaf people ( or those using hearing devices).

My hearing aids pick up every machine in the house except tv, I hear oven fans beautifully. I rely on closed captions on tv and messaging on my phone. I hope his eyes are better than his ears. Good luck. It is very frustrating to be quite deaf.

I don' t know if anyone mentioned already....could you hook up the tv to bluetooth and he could wear earbuds?

also, there are call centers that can translate words into type so he could read messages on a phone (an old fashioned type phone, not a smartphone)
...I don't remember the names of any of them right off the top of my head.

Medicare pays for a doctor of audiology each year. You should take him to an appointment to see if his hearing aids can be adjusted or if he needs something else.

I have hearing loss and have dealt with difficulty hearing television for the last couple of decades.

I had TV Ears at one point but found them to be both uncomfortable and unreliable.

But then I found Sennheiser.

Sennheiser makes amazing headsets for television. They have an older discontinued model that’s still available with some retailers and can often be found for under $50. It’s the Sennheiser SET 840. I’ve been using one of these for a decade now. And just bought a second set for a second television.

My mom could never wear hearing aids(not exactly sure why). Her hearing has dropped significantly. To solve the tv problem we put a small speaker, a Wonderboom, by her chair. It seems to be working and I don’t get blasted out but by the volume.

My DH is 76 and has worn hearing aides since about 4 yrs old.

How long has Dad had his hearing aides? Has he been back for adjustments? When my husband has to switch to Digital from analog it was very hard. It was only a few years back we found out why. Analog sounds like the person who is talking, digital sound is more mechanical. My husbands hearing is caused by damage to the ear not hearing loss as we age. So this mechanical sound was not good for him. They found a digital one close to analog.

Digital hearing aid's volume is set by computer. So there is the baseline the person hears normally and then up or down but in a certain range. So, if that baseline needs to be adjusted so does the up and down. The analogs you could turn as high and low as needed. Not so with digital. They are set to go only so high or so low.

Then its the mold, does it fit right? They have had to shave some of my husbands off for the mold to fit comfortably. If he doesn't like the mold, there are little tubes that go in the ear.

Cleaning, little beads of wax can get caught in tubing. This will effect hearing. Wax in the ear too can cause problems. Seniors tend to want things immediate. Doesn't happen with these digital aids. Your need to go back to have things tweaked. My husband is deaf in one ear and maybe 20 or 30% in the other and that's with an aid in. If completely deaf, an aid will not help. TV he needs closed captioning. There are TV ears and headsets that can be used if he hears at all. Telephone, my husbands lights up when ringing. Dad may like the Captel that shows on a screen what the person at the other end is saying. The phone is free but u pay for the service.

Call your County Disabilities dept and see what is available for the deaf. But I suggest you take Dad back to his Audiologist to find out why his aids are not working for him.

My guy had these hearing aids he adjusted with his smart phone. He did well for a while, but they were frustrating. After the foster dog did in one of them he opted for the more old fashioned type and is happier with them.

I myself have little hearing in the right ear, but "enough". Or as I say to the doctor," I hear much more than I want to ".

Long and short of it, as a nurse, was I never saw a patient with a hearing aid he or she didn't have a problem with. They virtually used to whistle and sing A Capella. Like vacuum cleaners, it is so hard to find hearing aids one can love. I sure wish you luck. And if it happens I sure hope you post them here!