It can be magical for someone with hearing issues to finally get a hearing aid, but if your elderly family member then doesn’t wear this fantastic tool, that’s a problem. There can be multiple reasons that happens, so you might need to narrow down possible causes.
She Forgets to Put it On
Elderly Care Peachtree Corners GA – Four Reasons Your Senior Won’t Wear Her Hearing Aid
When getting used to a new assistive device, it’s really common for people to forget they’ve got them. Your senior probably isn’t going to wear her hearing aids all the time, especially not when she’s sleeping or when she’s doing other things, like showering. That opens the door for opportunities for her to completely forget to put it back on, especially when the hearing aid is still very new for her.
She Just Doesn’t Want To
Your senior may decide she just doesn’t want to wear her hearing aid, too. It might be uncomfortable or feel odd to her and she may simply want to go without it for a little while. Again, it’s not uncommon for seniors to resent assistive devices, even when they solve problems and make life easier. Your elderly family member might go through phases where she just opts not to wear her hearing aids at all.
She Finds it Confusing to Operate
Hearing aids are small and the newer ones might have applications that help to operate them, which might be confusing or frustrating for your senior. This can especially be true if your elderly family member is not familiar or comfortable with new technologies. Something that can help is for your senior to have assistance with her hearing aids. Elderly care providers can give her the assistance she needs to be able to use her hearing aid easily.
Too Many Sounds Are Amplified
Something that hearing people don’t realize is that hearing aids aren’t perfect. They don’t reproduce human hearing exactly. They function by amplifying sounds, much like a microphone does. For some people, this can be frustrating because sounds are amplified at the same levels across the board, meaning conversations and background noises are equally amplified. If your elderly family member has had damaged hearing for a long time, it can also be uncomfortable to suddenly hear so many more sounds than usual.
There could be other reasons for your senior to avoid her hearing aids. Talk to her about what you’re noticing and see what you can do to help resolve any issues she’s having.
