Reasons You Should Encourage Your Elderly Loved One To Get Hearing Aids
Posted on: 15 January 2016
When you are helping to care for a loved one who is elderly, there are many aspects of care that you need to consider. However, among the most important is helping them to properly deal with hearing that may be impaired by age and other factors. While your elderly loved one may not care for the idea of wearing hearing aids every day, there are many reasons that you should encourage them to do so. Get to know some of these reasons your loved one should get fitted for and wear hearing aids so that you can be sure that you are taking the best possible care of your loved one.
Wearing Hearing Aids Can Improve Safety
One of the best reasons to encourage your loved one to wear hearing aids regularly is to protect and maintain their safety. When a person cannot hear anything that is going on around them, it can make it difficult for them to navigate the world around them. This is particularly true of people who could once hear well but whose hearing has since deteriorated.
If your loved one cannot hear what is going on around them, they may be unaware of storm sirens, traffic around them, people approaching them, or even someone trying to break into their home. This makes them unsafe in their daily life and activities.
Hearing Aids Can Help Keep Them Sharper, Longer
What many people do not realize is that wearing hearing aids can also help a great deal with a person's mental functions. In recent studies, there was a link found between the decline of a person's cognitive abilities (thinking, problem solving, memory, and the like) and impairment to their hearing.
The reasons for the connection between cognitive decline and hearing loss may be because the person avoids social situations in which their hearing would be put to the test. They may also feel isolated even when they are around other people because they cannot follow conversations completely and are distanced from them. As such, in order to help your loved one keep their mind as sharp as possible for as long as possible, you will want to encourage them to get their hearing tested and use hearing aids if they do have an impairment.
With these reasons in mind, you can begin to talk to your elderly loved one about getting tested for and wearing hearing aids. With any luck, these reasons will be enough for them to be cooperative about the prospect and work with you to improve their quality of life. Contact a business, such as County Hearing And Balance, for more information.
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