My mother has profound hearing loss that is a consequence of her Second World War service. She has no hearing at all in her left ear and less than 10% remaining in her right, mostly in lower registers. It’s only in the last 20 years that she was able to get a hearing aid that worked for her; without the aid, she hears nothing at all.
When I took my mother for a COVID-19 vaccination last year, everyone was masked, of course. It was a bit noisy in the vaccination room, and there were a lot of questions for my mother to answer. My mother has decades of experience reading lips, but that certainly wasn’t possible on vaccination day. The nurse would ask my mother something, and my mother, not able to hear her, would look at me. At first, I repeated the question to my mother, who has no problem hearing my voice even when I’m wearing a mask, but after a few questions, we settled into me just answering the questions directly, which the nurse and I both knew wasn’t really fair to my mother, but was going to be quickest route to getting the whole thing over, expediency over independence.
When we were done with the questions, and as she was preparing my mother’s arm with an alcohol swab, the nurse asked me what she was doing wrong, how I was able to communicate when she couldn’t. Surprisingly, I’ve never before been asked that simple question: how can I help your mother hear me? I suggested she try to speak in a lower register, which she did, and my mother could suddenly hear her. The nurse seemed surprised and pleased to learn this.
The nurse didn’t have a particularly high-pitched voice, but she was doing what most people do when someone obviously can’t hear them: she spoke very loudly. That might work with someone who doesn’t wear a hearing aid, but it usually just distorts the voice for someone with a hearing aid. And yelling will always feel sort of stressful to the listener as it is, of course, SOMEONE YELLING AT YOU!
Speaking in a lower register, slowly and clearly, can often work well with someone who is hard of hearing. Slow down a bit. Separate your words, try not to slur them together. I have always had a deeper voice, and I’m sure it’s because of trying to make my mother understand what I’m saying for my entire life.
Using a digital hearing aid has been so important to my mother’s wellbeing. The old, larger analog ones just didn’t work for her. She has had four different Phonak aids in the past 15 years, and each one has been a bit better than the last.
My mother received a new hearing aid a few months ago, and it is actually a big improvement on the one she got in 2018. Now she can even hear our cats meowing, which is a bit of a mixed blessing! The aid also came with a small wireless microphone that someone can wear while talking to her that transmits the speaker’s voice directly to the aid. We tried the microphone in the car and for the first time in my driving life, my mother didn’t have to ask me to repeat things. When I spoke, she would turn to look at me out of habit, but actually didn’t need to as she could hear me perfectly!
Many hearing aids now use a small rubber dome as the earpiece, but my mother found that when she ate or talked, those earpieces would pop out, which was annoying. A custom moulded ear piece was created that fits into her ear canal, and now the earpiece stays in very well. It was an option I had to ask the hearing aid folks for, surprisingly, so if you are having the same problem, see if they can make you a custom piece.
There are tons of devices available to help the hard of hearing, and there will be more as those of my generation, the first to listen to portable audio devices too loudly for too long, get older and harder of hearing. The most helpful assistive devices in our house are amplified telephones, and she likes the models from Clarity, which are really LOUD.
We also have a system from Silent Call that sets off a flashing strobe light when the telephone rings, someone presses my mother’s door bell, or when a connected smoke detector is triggered (my mother can’t hear smoke detectors, which has made for some scary moments in the kitchen). There is also the option of attaching a bed shaker to the Silent Call system to wake her at night when these events happen.
My mother’s hearing aid has a tiny wax guard on the earpiece to prevent ear wax from getting into the aid, but sometimes wax can even get past that, stopping all sound, and it is nearly impossible to clean out manually, so we would have to take the aid back to the clinic. It seemed a hearing aid blockage would tend to occur on a Friday afternoon immediately after the hearing aid clinic would shut for an extended long weekend, so a home solution was needed! I found a product called MyVac, which is a small homemade-looking vacuum similar to what they use at hearing aid clinics. It has saved our sanity more than once, and I can’t recommend it enough.
I keep putting off having a baseline hearing test, but I really should get that done. I’m pretty diligent with hearing protection when using power tools, even for a quick cut on a mitre saw, but I know some loss is probably inevitable.
I’ve watched my mother navigate the world with a hidden disability, and it’s been challenging for her. The vast majority of people are kind and patient, especially now that she is 100, but when she was younger, people would forget themselves and let out frustrated sighs when she couldn’t understand what they were saying. My mother was often embarrassed to have to ask people to repeat things, or to misunderstand and respond inappropriately. Long conversations with people she didn’t know well were tiring as she was trying to translate what they were saying while trying to keep up, decoding sentences that didn’t make sense. She would usually do very well, and she is an upbeat kind of person, but sometimes the reactions of others would get her down.
Speak low and slow. Be kind. Repeat.
