My wonderful but stubborn 78 year old mother has always had hearing problems, but never wanted to wear a hearing aid. Her hearing has gotten worse now and every single conversation is two conversations now. Me saying something. Her saying "pardon, I didn't hear you" and me repeating it. This goes on all day long. She does it with my children and with other people. Why? Because she can't hear them.
About 3 years ago she relented and bought two hearing aids. She then took back the one for "the bad ear" (both ears are bad really!) and kept the one for "the good ear" which she then lost and found a few times. She never wore the hearing aid at all except in the movie theater. Her hearing has been noticeably worse over the past few months and I have encouraged, reasoned, begged, pleaded, cajoled, asked her to wear it because she can't hear. Her responses range from "if people would just look at me when they talk to me I can hear them." to "I can hear fine - it's when people start mumbling I can't hear."
Okay people, I know she is in denial. So anyway we went back to the hearing aid center (actually twice in the past month) and the guy there tried his very best to convince her that she has a problem. He tested her hearing. He even compared it to ours so she could tell the difference. He played a sound track on the computer and she saw us raise our hands earlier than her. Still not convinced, he put her hearing aid in and she acknowledged that she could hear the sound earlier. He did everything he possibly could to get her to admit she has a problem. She varied from "there are people in my family with hearing loss when I was growing up" to the absurd, "you are all ganging up on me."
I am sick and tired of banging my head up against her brick wall. Why won't she admit she has a problem and do something about it? Me and my 2 adult daughters, and the guy at the hearing aid center, have all told her repeatedly that this is putting a strain on our relationship with her and to "please just wear the damn thing" but she refuses to.
I honestly don't think that she realizes how many times she says "pardon, what did you say?" etc..,
And God forbid when I might say "Mom, put your hearing aid in" after she says that because she just gets VERY angry and defensive.
Has anyone gone through this?
And what do I say next time she says "Pardon?" because honest to God, she says it at least 95 percent of the time and I am at wit's end.
Like you, I have to say everything two or three times. I have tried speaking louder but that just doesn't seem to do the trick. And my mother doesn't say "Pardon me". She screws up her face, opens her mouth, sticks out her tongue and brays out "HAH?" every single time.
HOWEVER, she can hear my husband just fine. He has a deeper voice, I have a higher voice. I guess her tweeter speaker is broken and she can only hear the woofer part. Sometimes it annoys the crap out of me. For instance, every day at around the same time, I open her bedroom door and and announce "Dinner's ready". I get the screwed up face and the big donkey-like "HAH?". If I say it again she does the same thing. I can't understand how she doesn't know what I'm saying if I say it the same time every frikkin day!! Now I open the door and hold up a sign that says DINNER'S READY.
I don't know what will work for you. Maybe carry a pad with you and when she says Pardon Me, write it down for her. She may get tired of reading your notes and put in her hearing aid. Or pretend you can't hear her saying Pardon Me and just smile and drift into another conversation. She has to want to wear those hearing aids because obviously you can't make the decision for her. If she can't hear and you don't accomodate her by repeating everything, she may make the decision herself.
Good luck. I said GOOD LUCK!!
Dory
Finally, I was able to get him to try TV Ears (a great product). Still, that didn't work except when I was awake and he knew I'd say something about his lowering the Ears volume. (He'd wear the Ears, but still use the common volume control.) The only thing that finally worked was my disconnecting the cable TV at the 'out of house' location when I went to bed at night. All he knew was the TV didn't work until I got up. I didn't tell him what I did, but I did tell him if he used the TV Ears volume I'd make sure the TV was available, but if he continued to treat Mom and I with such disrespect the TV would be off forever. Not because of his concern for me or Mom with respect to awakening us, but because he wanted the TV on did he finally comply. (After the typical 'testing' period.)
Perhaps a 'comply and reward' situation would work for you. Perhaps you could get a timer and keep it where you generally converse. Politely explain that you simply become too distraught emotionally at knowing she is missing out on so much wonderful conversation because of her need to have things repeated all the time... and surely you would be less distraught emotionally, as well. From then on you will be happy to repeat your words, but only after two minutes have gone bye. Every time she asks you to repeat - turn on the timer. BE CONSISTENT.
I clearly understand that might well sound - and surely could be properly considered a very hard core approach. But, when someone refuses to be polite on their own, sometimes they need a little schooling to re-learn kindness. (Remember - in some ways you are training a person with a mind that in some respects is that of a child.) Who knows but with such a hard core approach - or something similar - you will have encouraged the wearing of a hearing aid as a wonderful tool for her enjoyment in life... and your peace of mind will have once again become the routine.
Good luck...
V
What I really dislike about it when he forgets to put them in is that I have to raise my voice, and that tends to make even the most simple statement or answer sound angry. I don't want to sound angry (unless I really am, which isn't very often.) I no longer repeat myself or raise my voice. If he wants a conversation he puts in his aids. He does this willingly. His problem is forgetting and he responds to reminders. I don't know how I'd handle other reasons, like willful resistance or poor fit (unless I knew that was a problem), or vanity, etc. I just know it makes a huge difference in being able to carry on normal conversation. In a household were dementia resides, any kind of "normal" is very welcome!
Please don't take offense when I ask this - but does your mother have very mild dementia (you had mentioned forgetfulness). My mother is now in the moderate stage of dementia but when it was mild, it was just forgetfulness here and there. The reason I ask is that I have noticed with the dementia that there is NO TELLING HER that she is wrong. My mother is always right. Even if I prove the sky is blue, she just gets angry. The reason I am bringing this up (hope I haven't offended you any) is that if there is any possibility of dementia, this might account for her absolute stubborness when faced with the truth.
Unfortunately, I have given up with my mother and her hearing aids. It's very sad that I have given up but I have. I don't talk to her as much as before because I am sick to death of having to repeat the same sentence/s over and over again. If she doesn't hear something I say to one of the kids and she asks me what I just said, I will either say something really quickly to her like "Oh, I just said it's sunny outside"( so I don't have to repeat the whole 4 minute conversation again), or just ignore her question and talk about something else. I have picked the lesser of the two evils. It is her continuous choice of hers to not put the hearing aid in, to the detriment of not only herself but the inconvenience to her family as well. It is MY choice to accept her choice to not use the hearing aid and it is my choice to be inconvenienced as little as possible 0 repeating every conversation, having to shout, having to look at her (so she can hear) when I am talking to someone else is not fair to me anymore.
Not the ideal solution (ideally she'd wear the damn thing), but again..lesser of two evils.
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