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Many wonderful technological devices are available that increase the quality of life for the elderly.  Even when you think you have provided the technology that offers best solution to a problem, it is worthwhile to review the latest improvements periodically.

At one time my geriatric mother had the best hearing aids on the market.  Her first ones were analog. Later, she upgraded to state-of-the-art digital ones.  She could hear OK in a quiet room, but was miserable in public places like restaurants.  She did a lot of faking because she was embarrassed to be so deaf.  This was long before I entered the picture as her care partner and the family eldercare project manager.

For the past year the battle with her digital hearing aids has become increasingly difficult.  They screech and squawk and require manual adjustment.  She cannot change the settings correctly to hear while using the telephone.  Calling her on the phone is almost futile because she cannot understand us.

As her Parkinson’s and dementia have progressed, so many things that used to be manageable have become challenging.  We started putting the hearing aid batteries out of reach because she was changing them daily.  She just couldn’t hear if she did not set her hearing aids firmly in her ear, if she had them turned off, or if they screeched at her.  I had taken them to be tested to be sure they were working OK, and they were.  Then I took her to the audiologist to have her hearing checked.  It had changed very little.

Several weeks ago I went to a dinner party with neighbors who introduced me to a gentleman who wore hearing aids.  He had suffered with hearing troubles since childhood, and had always struggled with his hearing aids until he bought his current pair.  He said they were obscenely expensive but had changed his life and were worth every penny.

The next day I was sitting with Mom and noticed that she only had one hearing aid in. She was missing the one for her better ear.  I don’t know how long it had been missing, probably not more than a day or two since my sister had seen her two day’s earlier.  I was exasperated that none of the caregivers in her group home had noticed that she could not hear.  Everyone looked high and low for several days, but it did not turn up.

At first I thought about ordering another hearing aid to replace the one that was missing.  Because I had just had the conversation a week earlier with the gentleman who raved about his hearing aids, I decided to call him and get more details.  After talking with him, I called his audiologist and made an appointment.

The audiologist looked at Mom’s remaining hearing aid and told us that at one time it was the best on the market, but that radical improvements had occurred in the last few years.  She prescribed a Phonak Naida hearing aid that was specifically designed for people with extreme hearing loss.  Mom was a perfect candidate.   The best news was that it would adjust automatically to her environment.

As we went through the test Mom became more and more worried about the price of such whiz bang devices.  Being a child of the Great Depression, she had always been frugal and never made extravagant purchases.  It was so hard to convince her that it was worth the price of half a cheap car to improve her quality of life by improving her hearing.  She cried because she felt so guilty about spending so much money.  It took a while for me to convince her that she was worth it.

She went home for a week while the hearing aids were ordered.  She could only hear with a device called a Pocket Talker that looked like a transistor radio with a headset.  We had to speak into a microphone for her to hear us.

(Just as an aside, if you or someone you are helping ever has to go to the hospital, do not take the hearing aids.  They will most likely be lost.  Get a Pocket Talker.  It will save you a lot of anguish.  If it gets lost, it will cost $100-$150 to replace, which is a heck of a lot better than replacing hearing aids.)

The great day came when we went back to the audiologist for the new hearing aids.  Mom was having one of her more confused days.  She had looked anxious and pale when I picked her up. Her Parkinson’s tremor was pretty bad. The audiologist hooked Mom up to a computer with a bunch of little wires and tested her hearing aids against a computer program.  After about 20 minutes she started talking to Mom who looked even more confused, not because she was deaf, but because she could hear again!  As she realized that she was hearing better than she had in years, her color improved, her tremor became less, and she started having a real conversation.  She was a bit dazed but made no complaints about paying.  She knew what they meant to her quality of life.  This time I was the one who cried-from happiness.

Ironically, Mom’s lost hearing aid reappeared this week.  I found it sitting on her dresser.  She told me she had found it, but could not remember where.  I glad it was lost. Otherwise we would not have been jolted into finding out what’s new.  The good news is that we now also have a backup if she needs it.

This afternoon I visited Mom.  She looked a bit foggy when I first saw her, but as we started talking she became more focused.  We had the loveliest conversation for two hours about work and trying to lose weight and what each of us still wanted to learn and a bunch of other stuff mothers and daughters talk about (when they can actually understand each other).

Mom’s previous audiologist had told me that her hearing aids weren’t the top of the line any more, but they were still pretty good.  I did not realize how radically the technology had improved until we went shopping for the best we could find.  The lesson here is that any of us involved with seniors or caregiving need to keep alert to medical and technological advances.  While some things are lousy about the times we live in, medicine and technology are shining stars.  They keep getting better.  We just have to figure out how to pay for it all.

Copyright TheNewElder 2012