My 80 something grandparents are both very hard of hearing

[Roon]

but they refuse to get hearing aids. They get mad at each other because they can't hear each other, it's very frustrating. I don't know why they bother going to plays and to church, they can't hear anything.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Maybe they are too proud to admit that they are hard of hearing?

My mom, bless her heart, is hearing but she is telling me that she is losing hearing on one of her ears, so she's already prepared. She has known sign language for about 20 years, and will look into getting hearing aids soon.

Hawkeye-X

[Roon]

2. That could be

but it makes me think...is wearing hearing aids really that bad?!?! I love my hearing aids and I am very depressed when I can't afford batteries are I am in between old and new hearing aids. I get mine through hear now.

My grandfather uses CC to watch TV and my grandmother uses tv ears www.tvears.com. Those TV ears are awesome!! I don't watch TV otherwise I would consider getting a pair for myself.

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. My audiologist told me re: older folks and hearing aids

That once older, it's much harder to get the brain trained to focus on selective hearing re: discerning voices over background noise, when wearing aids. Many older people will get hearing aids only to stop wearing them as the input and the background level noises are too physically and emotionally difficult to handle.

My doc says that the younger you are when you start wearing hearing aids, the greater the possibility of success in being able to wear them on a regular basis due to the age of the brain and its ability to create new synapses in decoding sound and/or improving hearing ability.

[Roon]

4. That makes a lot of sense

Guess we can just get them a couple of bullhorns so they can talk across the room to each other.

[tblue37]

5. I have an article about that on my

I'm Listening as Hard as I Can website--"Refusing to Admit to Hearing Loss":
http://deafnotdumb.homestead.com/denial.html

I have another one, a very funny true story, about a man in his 80s whose wife, also in her 80s, couldn't persuade him to get a hearing aid. One day she fell in the bedroom, hurt herself, and couldn't get up. He couldn't hear her calling for help, because he was severely HoH anyway, and he had the TV turned up loud in the other room. She managed to scooch her way along the floor and knock the phone off the nightstand to call 911, just before passing out from shock. The first he knew of her situation was when the cops broke into the house to rescue her.

But still he refused to admit he needed a hearing aid.

You can read the whole story on my site--
"What Does It Take to Persuade Someone to Get a Hearing Aid?" http://www.deafnotdumb.homestead.com/mac.html

You can guess what it took to make him get a hearing aid from the title my (also deaf) sister suggested for the story: "Will Hear for Sex."