by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A concerned (and frustrated) daughter wrote
I’m hoping that you can help me. My mother is 63 and has significant hearing loss which was diagnosed about 20 years ago. She bought hearing aids about 2 years ago and has never, ever used them.
She is not in denial about her hearing loss. Her excuse is simply, ‘If I wear my hearing aids, I’ll hear all of the things that I don’t normally hear and it will drive me crazy.’ The worst part is that when my mother doesn’t hear everything someone says she will simply fill in her own blanks—which creates arguments and disagreements amongst her family and friends. She will always interpret what she missed in the most negative way, and then gets her feelings hurt over something no one said to her. This is unbelievably frustrating. I am tired of repeating myself and talking too loud, and also being the arbitrator in arguments that I know stem 99% of the time because my mother didn’t hear what she thought she heard.
How can I convince her that hearing the good things in life is far more important that being bothered by occasional noise?
Some people just aren’t ready to wear hearing aids when someone pressures them to get them. Actually, this happens a lot! The time to get hearing aids is when you are ready to wear them, not when someone says you need them. (Yes, the person does need them—but it is just wasted money if they then never wear them.)
Your mother has a valid point when she says, “If I wear the hearing aids, I will be able to hear all of the things that I don’t normally hear and it will drive me crazy.”
Your mom hasn’t heard many of these background sounds for a number of years, and thus hearing them all at once is nerve-wracking to say the least.
The solution to this is that your mom has to slowly learn to wear her hearing aids—first in quiet surroundings so there are no other noises to blast her ears. In such quiet surroundings, she should converse with one person. When she is comfortable doing that, then she can slowly graduate to noisier places and do the same. Over time her brain will adjust to the extra noise, but this takes up to 3 months—so don’t hurry the process.
Like your mom, I don’t hear everything someone says—whether I wear my hearing aids or not. You see, hearing aids aren’t perfect. Thus, if your expectation is that she will hear everything, you and she will be sadly disappointed. If both of you go with the expectation that in quiet surroundings she will hear quite a bit more than she does now, then you have the right expectations. In noisy situations, all bets are off unless she also uses assistive listening devices.
You explain how your mom, when she misses something, “simply fills in her own blanks—which creates arguments and disagreements among her family and friends.”
Don’t be too hard on your mom. When we (hard of hearing people) miss words, we naturally try to fill in the blanks—sometimes we fill them in with the right words, and sometimes with the wrong words. Unfortunately, if we miss a key word, what we think we hear is likely totally “off the wall”. Problems arise when we insist that what we thought we heard is what you said. Part of adjusting to being hard of hearing is realizing that what we think we hear is often not what was actually said. Thus, we need to be flexible to others telling us what really was said when they realize we are off track.
I understand your frustration about repeating yourself. However, look at it this way. If you have to repeat yourself, this just shows that you are not doing the right things so that your mom can hear and understand you the first time.
Use me for an example. If you are going to talk to me and I don’t have my hearing aids on, you are going to have to get close (and by close I mean almost nose to nose, not talking to me from across a room). Furthermore, you need to have adequate light on your face and you must be facing me so I can speechread you. Also, you need to speak clearly and maybe a bit more slowly. If you don’t do these things every time, you will just have to repeat yourself (and get frustrated in the process).
Thus, when talking to a hard of hearing person, you need to meet their communication needs before you start talking.
You ask, “How can I convince my mom that hearing the good things in life is far more important that being bothered by occasional noise?”
I think you have the wrong idea about what you call “occasional noise”. To you, there are foreground sounds (like the person you are talking to) and background sounds (environmental sounds, etc. that you ignore).
When you are hard of hearing, there is no such thing as foreground and background sounds—they are all in the foreground so are annoying and loud—and trying to hear someone through them at times is nigh to being impossible.
That is why wearing hearing aids in quiet places with one person talking and being no more than 6 or so feet apart is the ideal. Under those conditions, wearing hearing aids really helps. However, when you add in noise and distance, hearing aids rapidly become less and less helpful. When it is too noisy, wearing hearing aids can actually make things worse, not better.
This is why hearing aids are not the whole answer. In order to successfully live with a hearing loss, you need to do four things (after you have accepted and adjusted emotionally and psychologically to your hearing loss). These four things are not optional—they are all equally important.
They are:
- Get and wear (when appropriate) properly fitted hearing aids.
- Supplement the hearing aids with assistive listening devices when noise and distance interfere.
- Learn to speechread (lip reading was the older term).
- Learn and practice the myriads of proper hearing loss coping skills such as get close, face the person, have adequate light on your face, cut out background noise, etc, etc.
If your mom will do all four of these things, she will understand ever so much more (and you will not be so frustrated either).
However, you need to remember that communication is a two-way street, thus both you and your mom have to do your respective parts. Your mom has to do the above 4 things, and you have to accommodate her hearing needs (basically point 4 above). When you both do this, you’ll both be much happier and communication will be ever so much easier!
For more information on communicating with hard of hearing people get the short easy-to-read book “Talking With Hard of Hearing People—Here’s How to Do It Right!“.
Reminds me of my own mother, she was finally convinced that she really need to wear a hearing aid on her right ear, only after the audiologist explained her situation.
And before she would agree to buy and wear one, she made sure that she chose something which is rather hidden from view. Vain woman.. hehehe.
I’m sorry, but you can’t ask an entire household to change the way they speak to one person because that one person is unwilling to make accommodations for her loss of hearing. My mother is much like the example above – only my mother refuses to get her hearing checked. She swears there is nothing wrong with her hearing, yet gets upset when people are getting upset because she is not understanding what is being said. Needless repeating, raising of voices, mis-interpretation of what is said…all because ONE PERSON in the house can’t just say “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, can you please repeat it more clearly?” If we look at her face-to-face and speak loud enough and clear enough for her to hear (i.e. speaking clearly the first time), she thinks we are “talking down to her” and she gets offended. I am in an no-win situation here. To tell you the truth, most days it’s best my mother DOESN’T hear what is being spoken in this house…she won’t like what she “hears”.
I feel your pain! Thanks for sharing, I feel the same way sometime! It’s insensitive and inconsiderate.
I’m tired of having to repeat myself of getting yelled at by other family members because I’m raising my voice. The hardest thing to watch is how she can’t hear her great-grandchildren. No one wants to be around her anymore because no matter how many times we have to repeat something, she just doesn’t get it. The moment is gone.
Even if your parent has hearing aids it can be an issue, when those get lost or wear out. My mom has hearing aids and has worn them for years. She is always losing them, which is understandable because she is forgetful and they are small. But when they stop working she is slow to get them replaced and it becomes extremely frustrating for those trying to talk to her.
She is all concerned about the price, which is understandable, but she could afford them, but she is concerned that she won’t be able to leave any money to the kids if she spends it on hearing aids.
I keep telling her that it is highly unlikely she will leave any money to any of us anyway, given the propensity of nursing homes to extract every ounce of money out of elders anyway so she should use the small nest egg if needed to take care of her health.
What irks me is the toll it takes on my relationship with her. She doesn’t hear what you say or she interjects unrelated comments into conversations so it impedes the conversation because people have to stop and explain to her. So many times I have wanted to say to her “Just shut up and go sit down!”
Now my perspective is this. She may think she is being selfless because she is saving every damn penny to give to her kids, but her behavior is actually extremely selfish because she impedes the natural flow of conversations, she ties up her working kids with extra things we have to do because she cannot hear to do them, putting more responsibilities on their shoulders and adding more stress to their lives and thus potentially giving them stress-related illnesses. So is that a win-win situation for everyone. So I get several thousand dollars when she dies and I spend that on medication I had to get because dealing with her, stuffing frustration and anger all the time took its toll on my health.
NO siree. My strategy is to say to her, Mom you get your hearing aids fixed or replaced and you wear them and I promise you I won’t drag you into situations where the background noise is amplified. If you cannot do that then I cannot do anything for you. You have to meet me halfway or you are on your own.
The other part of this is that so many people will say, it’s no big deal, she is just old and hard of hearing. These people are not the people that are there as advocates for my Mom. They might drop in once in awhile, but they don’t stick with her and try to help her when needed. So who really is the villain here? The people who are nice about it and aren’t there when my Mom needs help, or the people who will be advocates and help, but insist that she meets halfway?
The “Make-nice” people disappear when she doesn’t wear her hearing aids or they aren’t working and they realized it, they just disappear for awhile saying nothing. Thus she becomes lonelier and lonelier and has no real good strong friendships.
It’s a tough love situation. But you have to be firm for their well-being.
I HEAR you!! The person who is hard of hearing also has a responsibility of trying to work with the hear aid, but more importantly… BE AWARE of your surroundings. If I am speaking directly into your ear trying not for the whole room to hear me and you still don’t get it, don’t get mad at me because I say never mind. Understand what the situation is. If people are so frustrated with you because you are rudely interrupting the conversations with WHAT WHAT, don’t get mad at us, be AWARE of your surroundings and the situation. My brother got so mad at my mother he told her if she has to ask what all the time then turn her aids up. She told him no, it won’t do any good. So because she chooses to not be part of the solution we are the problem!!!!¡
I agree wholeheartedly. There needs to be counseling done for both of us. I so wish I could make her understand how she frustrates us to no end with her attitude of its your problem not mine.
I feel so much better knowing I’m not alone. I’m to take days off from work to accompany her to appointments…it’s too much…thanks for sharing
I reall object to what you said about if she can’t hear you, you aren’t doing the right things.
Why is it such a one way street? Communication takes two people.
I understand hearing aids are not ideal but why is it that the hearing person has to bend over backwards when the hard of hearing person makes no effort?
My dad has lost hearing in old age and never had good vision. He can’t read lips or get visual cues. He’s now so hard of hearing that he can’t even hear people sitting beside him in the car. Try dealing with that.
He REFUSES to get a hearing aid so I’ve just told him not to talk to me anymore. He wants me to speak loudly, but not too loudly, to repeat, repeat and then repeat AGAIN and do it all cheerfully. I have anxiety issues and can’t handle all that if I wanted to (when he can’t hear me, he stomps and cusses at me but I am to always be sweet and happy. If he gives a damn about me, he could at least try an aid. My mom just refuses to speak to him.
He says he can’t afford it because he wants to leave me money especially since I have some health issues. But as the person said above, whatever money is saved, I’ll have to spend on recovering from the damage all this is doing to me. Plus, I wish he valued having a good relationship with me in his final years, but as it is, there is almost no communication because when we talk all the effort goes into dealing with his hearing.
I know it sucks to need a hearing aids, but he is in his late 80s and has very few health issues at all. Can’t he just see this as sort of a blessing in a way – he’s old but he’s still healthy mentally and physically – health enough to get around and to think clearly. He has a lot in life to hear, when most of his peers are now 6 feet under. No one gets out of life without some crap. A hearing aid won’t kill him.
My dad is 82 years old. With moderate to severe hearing loss.
Our problem is my dad has a severe phobia when it comes to haveing anything on or in his ears. This phobia isn’t something new, he has always had this issue. If you put something on or in his ears he has panic attack. So hearing aids are not a option for my dad.
What other options are out there? At age 82 is surgery a option?
We live near the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale Arizona. Does anyone know if the Mayo Clinic has anything new that might help my dad’s hearing loss issue?
Thank you for your time in advance.
Hi Joe:
If your dad can’t/won’t wear hearing aids or assistive devices that are touching his ears, that really limits the help available to him.
I assume that he has gone for treatment to help him get over his phobias. If not, that would be a good avenue to explore IF he will cooperate. If not, then the only thing I can suggest is various assistive devices that work through loudspeakers placed a foot or so from his ears.
For example, if he can’t hear the TV, then the TV Soundbox with remote speaker(s) placed near each side of his head (on the back of the sofa for example) will let him hear much better without blasting everyone else out of the room. You can see the Sound Box at http://hearinglosshelp.com/shop/tv-soundbox/. My wife and mother-in-law both love theirs.
I’m not aware of any surgical options at this point unless he has a conductive hearing loss. However, I suspect he has the much more common sensorineural hearing loss–and up to now, there is not surgery for this kind of loss. They are working on hair cell regeneration, but it is not here yet.
Cordially,
Neil