by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Do you always carry personal identification with you? Maybe you do when you are going out driving or shopping since you’ll have your wallet or purse with you containing your driver’s license. But what happens if you just go out for a walk around the block? or are swimming? or are just walking around your retirement community and you are in an accident or have a medical emergency?
Now throw hearing loss into the situation. People ask you questions but since you are hard of hearing, and may or may not have your hearing aids on in the above activities, you may not hear or understand them, or even worse, misunderstand them and give the wrong answers.
This is where having personal identification makes things better. Emergency personnel know to look for identification. Some people have MedicAlert (or equivalent) bracelets or pendants, that list their main medical conditions and/or hearing loss, but others don’t because of the annual and other costs.
Identification “tags” are only useful when you are wearing them. Since you never know when an accident or incident will happen, it is wise to keep your identification on whenever you leave your house. You can have the information you want engraved on it so emergency responders will know immediately that you have a communication problem and won’t treat you as though you were a “mental case” because you don’t respond appropriately.
Fortunately, you can get an ID wristband or ankle band for a very reasonable cost from a source you might not have thought of—from RoadID. Llearn more about the RoadID line of products here.
Leave a Reply