Pretty tough assignment in my experience. Had a hard time getting my gramps to get one and now my dad is putting up the same resistance. I think it's just a constant reminder that they're getting old, which can be rough. Better than having to yell to have a normal conversation though.
My mom wore them for years. Our problem with her when she got dementia was getting her to eat. She would spit out everything. Except ice cream.
I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters so we all shared spending days with mom and my siblings all complained about her not eating. I told them she eats like a pig when I'm with her because I give her Ben & Jerry's Phish Food Ice cream. All she can eat, which was a ton. My older sister was aghast and said "what about her cholesterol?" I responded "she's 94, weighs 75 lbs and has full on dementia. berkeley cholesterol. She smiles when I'm with her".
My point is you can try to tell them what's best for them or let them do what they want. They're old and deserve it.
68TR250 said:What is the ball park figure at Costco?
Depends how bad the loss is, pricing is different between in-the-ear and behind-the-ear, and there's different power levels/sizes of each. But ballpark $3k for a pair? There's so many variables. It's gonna be more than $500 and less than $5,000 (but maybe not by much!)
Name brand, the comments are the same but change 'pair' to 'each'.
AFAIK all health insurance in the US considers 'hearing' to be exactly as important as 'seeing' and 'chewing', i.e. there's no coverage. This is all out of pocket.
My father has worn them since I can remember (but only about that time, and I'm in my late 40's). He was a hunting guide in his youth and shot away the hearing in his right ear -all but 5% of it, and he lost 100% of his hearing in his left ear when he was in his late 20's to a disease. Rough way to go.
The upshot of all this was that my mother spent huge amounts of time learning about the disease he had and his loss to try and help him. This was long pre-internet days, so libraries, medical journals. Eventually, Mom got her masters and then her Doctorate in Audiology. She worked for the number one ear clinic in the nation for about 5 or so years and then opened her own clinic which she ran for about 15.
I've had the opportunity to watch the technology progress over time. Because of my mother's position and relationship with a few companies and my father's willingness to try new tech, Dad was on the bleeding edge of new hearing aids. Mom was one of the first fitters (if not the first out of the factory) to fit a hearing aid that connected to a smartphone (Iphone) and Dad was the user.
Mom is retired now several years, and this has actually been kinda difficult for dad, IMO. He does not have his own personal audiologist!
As for hearing aids, though I don't wear them, my life has literally been surrounded by them.
Do you buy your carparts from a crap big box vendor that gives poor service, or do you work with someone that takes care of you after the sale? Costco has made pretty big waves, but only because of price. They are definitely not making waves because of their great service. When you need a tune (and you will need an adjustment or tune or alteration to the settings), are they going to take care of you? Shop around for a good audiologist and stay as far away as you can from the Beltone vendors.
As for convincing others, the pride thing is definitely an issue. Though Dad has been a regular user for almost 40 years, he has had an issue with his most recent set. The tuning of his hearing aid did not match his hearing loss and as a result, they simply did not work for him. He did not want to go back to the audiologist (the Dr that bought out my mother's clinic) because she is not his wife. I talked to him and made the point that he was not getting the full performance out of the aides that he could and as a result, he was missing things. He did actually take thought and decided to have them adjusted - huge improvement.
One note my father has told me about use- Rechargeable aides suck. They only last about 6-8 hours. Well, you don't wear them that short of a time period, you wear them all day. A typical zinc air battery (I think thats what they are) was lasting several days. Rarely did he have to change them out in the middle of something and he could always notice beforehand when that was coming. With a rechargeable, you cannot make it through the day on a charge. So what do you do while they are charging?
Hope some of that helps.
No, I'm not a parent in need of these but I do wear them. My latest MD Hearing Aids are by FAR the best bang for the $$$$. This set is rechargeable...adjustable(volume /settings/environments) and way less the the $1750 per ear set I bought over eight years ago. huh somebody say sumpin'????? ....wink late y'all
In reply to NoviceClass :
Getting the person to purchase the devices is just the first battle. Getting them to actually wear them is a whole new game. You might be surprised to know that old people can be incredibly vain.
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