Peter studied hearing aid fitting at the world headquarters of Starkey Labs. He was able to have hands on training with the company’s founder, Bill Austin. He has also undergone advanced training in the smallest, nearly invisible style hearing aids, and has expanded his education by traveling to Denmark to learn directly from European hearing aid manufacturers. He continues to attend conferences and training seminars to stay current on the rapidly evolving world of hearing aid technology.
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Older adults with hearing loss face a number of challenges in caregiving environments. These environments can pose challenges for anyone, but those with hearing loss have a particularly difficult path toward getting the care they need. Caregiving environments are quite varied, ranging from individual appointments to ongoing care facilities. Let’s take a moment to think about some of the common caregiving environments that can pose a challenge for older adults, particularly those with hearing loss. If you are helping your loved one navigate a caregiving environment, these tips can make the difference between getting effective care or not. Whether you are assisting an older adult attend a healthcare appointment or navigate a nursing care facility, your assistance is crucial.
Healthcare Appointments
A visit to the doctor or hospital can be alienating and difficult for any senior. Learning how to communicate effectively with nurses and doctors can make the difference between successful or unsuccessful care and recovery. When you assist your loved one in a visit to an emergency room, for instance, it is crucial for you to serve as an interpreter from the triage stage through meeting with the doctor. Take some time before the visit to talk with your loved one about their symptoms and needs. You can use this information to notice if your loved one is misinterpreting any questions. It is important not to take your loved one out of the conversation but rather to translate questions and repeat at a closer distance. If you know that your loved one has incorrectly answered a question, be sure to speak up right away. Getting the right diagnostic information is essential for your loved one to get the right treatment.
Nursing Facilities
If your loved one is in an extended care facility, these communication issues can be compounded. One instance of miscommunication can be enough to set your loved one off in the wrong direction, and the miscommunication can easily snowball. Make sure to form a strong connection with your loved one’s caregivers. Knowing that you are present as an advocate can strengthen the web of care. Make sure to keep up with the latest symptoms your loved one experiences. If you can communicate these symptoms to extended care personnel, you will form an essential bridge that makes treatment possible. Simpler moments of communication are important, as well. If you know that your loved one is frustrated or dissatisfied with any aspect of care, you can facilitate a conversation with the appropriate staff. Finally, make sure that your loved one is getting the right assistive technology or disabilities accommodations for hearing needs. Many nursing care facilities offer advanced assistance for those who have hearing loss, and you simply need to make it clear to the staff that your loved one is in need to get these services.
Seeking Treatment
Although these steps can help your loved one get a better quality of care in individual appointments or in extended nursing care, these accommodation strategies can only go so far. Your role as an interpreter can be very helpful, but you can still get things wrong from time to time. Furthermore, you might not be able to be there for all the conversations with healthcare personnel when you are needed. In order to improve the quality of care and improve the burden on your time and physical presence, you can help your loved one get treatment. Beginning with a hearing test, our hearing health professionals can diagnose your loved one’s needs, including the specific sounds and audio environments that make communication difficult. Unfortunately, many healthcare settings have difficult sonic landscapes, so getting treatment is the only durable solution to improve healthcare conversations. Our hearing healthcare professionals can recommend he right range of hearing aids or other assistive technology to meet your loved one’s needs. When hearing aids are put in place consistently and effectively, your loved one might be surprised at how much easier it can be to communicate with healthcare personnel. The improvement to that quality of care is more than worth the cost of the aids and the process of adjustment to them. Why not help your loved one schedule a hearing test today?