How can you help elders in the family who have hearing difficulty?

Often family members notice that elders in their family do face difficulty in listening to conversations. However, no one likes it if someone points out one’s shortcomings. In fact, it often ends in arguments. Making someone accept his/her hearing loss is the first hurdle faced by family members in most of the cases.
Our suggestion is to take gradual steps.

Know about the signs of hearing loss.
It’s simple; you can fill our questionnaire ” Check your hearing for yourself. ” The concerned person and a family member can fill this form together.

Questions in this questionnaire may facilitate thinking process in the person about the possibility of hearing loss. Encourage them to get their hearing test done.

A test called” Pure Tone Audiogram ‘ or simply ‘Audiogram’ tells us about whether the person has normal hearing sensitivity or has hearing loss. If hearing loss, then what is the severity of hearing loss, is it treatable or requires hearing aid to overcome the difficulty of hearing.

• Where to get this test done?

– An Audiology clinic is the right place where you can do this test.

• Why Audiology clinic?

– Audiology clinic has various facilities like sound treated room, well calibrated equipments, qualified professionals who can answer all your queries related to – Hearing, hearing loss and its probable solutions.

Upon detection of hearing loss.

If your family member happens to have hearing loss then a counselling session will help clear many doubts.

How do we hear, how and why does hearing loss affects communication?

 Why hearing loss in one ear versus hearing loss in both ears affects hearing differently in different situations?

Why only hearing aid and not any other treatment?

Will hearing aid cure hearing loss?

– Audiologist can explain you much more besides all your queries how a hearing loss affects communication, social ‘interactions, self confidence. Relationships & general quality of life.

Together set the expectations

– Setting reasonable & fair expectations about performance of hearing aid is essential for best outcome.

– User as well as family members need to understand benefits & limitations of hearing devices in general & in particular for their family member depending upon his/her hearing loss, duration of hearing loss, lifestyle etc.

Educate yourself.

Ask questions to an Audiologist. Gather information about various technologies available in hearing aids. How can they be beneficial to user in having better hearing. How will directional microphone, noise cancellation help user in hearing during noisy situations. How does new technology add many more user friendly features. How these features will help the user to have better hearing experience.

The process to help an elder family member starts at detecting difficulty in hearing and ends in educating whole family about hearing loss and hearing aids.