How can I communicate with hearing impaired person?

Does he also have dementia? My mother was profoundly deaf and with moderate dementia. Although she had very good hearing aids and claimed she could hear us, we often could tell she didn't know what we said. I think part of the problem with comprehension along with deafness.
I noticed the more complicated or longer the sentences, the less she was able to follow what we said to her. She needed time to process shorter sentences and more simple concepts.
You might try looking directly at him and speaking slowly, enunciating each word and keep it simple.
Toward the end we found it was more effective to use a hand held erasable white board and communicate in short words and one sentence at a time, wait for her to respond, then add another sentence.

Thank you all for responding to my question about communicating with someone with hearing loss. You have posted excellent suggestions for communicating with someone with hearing loss who is a family member or someone you are caring for. I think I didn't make it clear that I referred to people who live in the same independent living facility where I live, and share the same dining and laundry facilities.

AliBoBali: I only mentioned my cholesteatoma and my tympanomastoidectomy because you seemed rather sure that all ear problems involved just ear wax. They most certainly do not.

arianne777 ~ You did say that it was another person who lived in same facility. :-) I think the biggest problem isn't that you were unclear, but that this is a site that usually asks/answers questions for caregivers, and those of us who are actively caregiving can be a scatterbrained lot due to stress (that might be an accurate description of only me, who knows). ;-)

Hopefully your comment here will keep future commenters on track and you'll get some ideas.

Llamalover ~ I didn't know whether to reply to you and risk seeming defensive about a misunderstanding, or ignore you and risk seeming rude. I'll err on the side of giving a reply, and hopefully this will clear things up.

I didn't mean to overlook the condition you have when I commented that "earwax build up is responsible for a large percentage of elderly who have hearing problems" (aka, "not everyone has hearing loss due to this reason") and "ear drops or irrigation over a few weeks to see if it helps" (aka, "one can try this to see if your version of hearing loss is related to wax build up, but it might not work because any given individual's hearing loss may not be due to wax build up.")

I hope your hearing loss is getting proper treatment and improving.

Hi Arianne, I'm not sure I can help you...but my Dad is hearing impaired (we joke about being deaf in one ear and can't hear out of the other)...but I've found that writing to them helps...when a person is deaf or hard of hearing, they loss a lot of their ability to process language....writing is a different part of the brain...so when my Dad doesn't comprehend what I am telling him, I write it down....maybe this will help! Blessings, Lindaz.

Ummmm, OK lindaz, writing is good, but one small thing - no, we hard-of-hearing people do not necessarily lose **language** abilities, you're implying aphasia or dementia is somehow tied to ear and not brain function. I'll grant you that dyslexia and dysgraphia are distinct from difficulties with . production and interpretation of spoken language, and even the the extra effort to decode not only language but the sounds themselves can be taxing. But, that touches on a pet peeve of sorts - I have experienced people who assume I'm stupid or otherwise not worth the effort to communicate accurately with because I have hearing aids, but I think I process language per se just fine.

AliBoBali: Thank you for your kind comments. Yes, I have an excellent ENT, whom I see regularly. And I do wear one aide.