Elderly relative won't wear hearing aids. Stopping visits until he does?

[TheTreeLightsAreFuckingMeOffNow]

Morning all,

This might sound harsh but it's driving me up the bloody bend.
My grandad is elderly, 82. He's frail now and has just given up his license. Between me and my mum we have a rota for all lifts needed, I have him round for dinner once a week and so does she. The load is shared between me, my mum and aunt. My nanny sadly passed away a few years back so we try and keep grandad busy as he can get lonely. He lives 5 doors up from my mum and I know she carries a huge load of this and she struggles so I really try and help out as much as I can between having young DC, working full time as a single parent etc. grandad grates on mum sometimes as he won't even bother opening his mail he will just trundle round to mums while she's WFH and give her the envelopes. She's on a bit of a journey with asserting boundaries with this, as he's quite bone idle as it is and my nanny did everything for him so there's aspects that probably won't change now.

Anyway more to the point, he is profoundly deaf. But he never wears his bloody hearing aids! His excuse is 'his ears are blocked so what's the point' and 'he can hear perfectly well without them..' well the only reason he can hear is because we are shouting at him. The TV is on 3/4s of the max volume. It's bloody exhausting. I'm autistic and struggle with loud noises at the best of times. He doesn't know I'm autistic as he doesn't believe in any of that and said 'it's no different to when I take DD to soft play with loud noises'.

Anyway, I personally think it's rude and so antisocial to go to peoples houses, be fed and looked after and expect everyone to shout at him. Just put the bloody hearing aids in!

I've now said to grandad that he cannot come round or ask for help unless he's wearing his hearing aids. This hasn't gone down well with him, of course. I'm conscious with mum now getting even more of the load as I've put that boundary in place. I have suggested that she also has the same boundary she maybe it'll make him realise. She is thinking about doing the same thing.

AIBU? I think it's rude to come into someone else's home and expect everyone to shout when there's an easy fix. Shouting at someone and having to repeat yourself for 2-3 hours I find utterly exhausting, I come away feeling really overwhelmed and honestly can't wait to drop him back. I know that's probably due to my ND but I just can't do it anymore.

He won't wear them because he 'doesn't need them.' We've asked if they hurt or are too loud and he said they're fine.

AIBU? What else can we do? Thank you!

Not being able to communicate is very isolating.

Some people, like you, have no patience to repeat things. So conversation starts to wain.

From what my dad tells me, wearing hearing aids isn't like wearing glasses- where things become clearer and it's almost like before. With hearing aids, everything changes. The sound is different. Comfort is key. Knowing how to adjust also key. I'd take him to a specialist or get someone who is successfully wearing them to have a chat to him.

I genuinely don't know what you want people to say to be honest @TheTreeLightsAreFuckingMeOffNow .

You can either just cut him off completely, which seems breathtakingly cruel for such an elderly gentleman on his own - or do the sensible thing and turn the television down a little bit and put the subtitles on, and just train yourself to speak louder around him. This is what I have always done with people who are hard of hearing. If he won't wear the hearing aids you can't force him.

And maybe just visit him a little bit less, maybe start with two thirds of the amount of visits you're doing now, so you're still seeing him, but you're still getting plenty of time to yourself, and your own family, and your own life ...

You have agency, you have autonomy, you don't have to be his servant you know. You can pull back, and do as little as you want. But the genie is well out of the bottle now, and you (and other family members including his own wife - your nan) have enabled your grandad's behaviour.

There is nothing you can do about it now. You won't change him. You and your family need to manage him now, and continue to look after him. You can't just stop seeing him. The only other option is to look into a care home for him. But if he refuses to wear his hearing aids, I would imagine he is not very likely to agree to moving into a care home!

By the way, why on earth did your mum spend multiple thousands on a pair of hearing aids for your grandad when they're free on the NHS? My cousin aged 64 just got a pair on the NHS. He only waited 4 months from the first visit to the GP to getting the hearing aids - free batteries, free tubes, free consultations, free everything that goes along with having hearing aids.

The exact ones he has, Specsavers tried to sell him for £2500 earlier in the year. Did your mum not know NHS do them for free?

I agree - he can't even be bothered to open his own mail! Being elderly is not an excuse for not opening an envelope. I used to deal with my father's mail. His cognitive ability declined (though he was totally unaware fo this) to the extent that he couldn't understand what business letters were saying to him, and was spending so long reading all the t&cs that he missed deadlines for payment.

It's exhausting. YANBU

Help him to clear his own ear wax by following this advice, it may take more time to soften the wax than stated below

www.nhs.uk/conditions/earwax-build-up/

Not trying to be rude but your comment about 'whatever the NHS fit' is really rude. The NHS hearing aids are the same as private ones. Unless you're actually an Audiologist then I doubt you have any idea what constitutes a good hearing aid.

OP, the beat was for your grandad to get used to his aids is to start wearing them at home when it's quiet as opposed to when he's with company. If he only wears them part time he will never fully acclimatise.

It's frustrating but I'd use subtitles on the TV, use a blackboard or notepad and keep the conversation to a minimum, there's no point in shouting, it doesn't help anyone.

If he's getting a lot of earwax, that may be why his hearing aids aren't helping. A tiny plug of earwax over the central hole cuts the sound completely.

This thread has prompted me to start learning BSL. I really want conversations to continue when I can't hear so well. I know it's going to be key to my contentment.

Opening mail and then passing business letters to someone else to read/advise is different to not actually bothering to open it.

It sounds like this to me too.

But I also think it will be hard for him to change. And he might just decide not to.

I find my mother's hearing aids to be so useless that I've actually started using a bit of sign language with her.

It works better.

You know I'll say "did you leave your keys in the car".

And at the word "keys" I'll point to the door keyhole.

And at the word "car" I'll mimic driving a car.

My mum spent thousands on hearing aids because the wait time was very long where we are.

We live rurally and the hospital has so many patients and it's completely overrun.
My mum and myself were desperate for some respite and desperate for him to start hearing us. So she bought his hearing aids in the hope that he would wear them. He promised his he would.

I do have autonomy, of course. But this is a man who is refusing ANY sort of outside help. He won't let carers in and if they do come in, he verbally abuses them and they leave. Tried and tested. There is no real other help out there. Other than to sell his house and put him into a care home. Which ultimately we will need to do at some stage as us as a family are falling apart at the seams.

Why does his needs trump us who are looking after him? Being elderly isn't a faux pass to take the piss out of the people caring and helping him.

I totally understand.

Looking after an elderly person is very very hard.

And then we feel the guilt because obviously they can't help being weak and old aswell.

You realise you can't just shove in a couple of aids and miraculously hear like you did aged 16, yes?
They take a lot of getting used to, they are overwhelming and even somewhat scary and a lot of people would rather struggle on than persevere for the few months it takes for them to become normality.

Even when used to them it's an ongoing challenge to seat them right, to find volume levels and as hearing degenerates to have them reset again and again.

It's not a magic key. I have profound hearing loss in one ear and moderately severe in the other. The best hearing aids in the world aren't fixing that and I will still struggle.
I'm relatively young. Thankfully my family are accommodating of my issues.

In the same way that you’re experiencing overwhelm, hearing aids can do that to people who are not used to hearing. It can be exhausting and incredibly uncomfortable to suddenly have a lot more auditory input to process. That’s not to say he can’t get used to them by increasing his tolerance slowly, but it’s not as simple as just wearing them.

I wish grandad would learn sign language.

But this is a man who won't even bother to open his mail, or put his washing in a pile so when I pick it up it's in a bin bag ready.
He won't bother to write in Christmas cards so just gives black Christmas cards.

I'll get flamed for this, but I don't care. I love him but he's bone idle. He's had everything done for him his whole life.. there's not a prayer that he will learn sign language.

He has my old iPhone and despite me showing him so many times how to text, he says he can't be bothered and will wait for someone to call him.

He's making our lives harder and it's really unfair.

YWBU to give him this sort of ultimatum based on the hearing aids.

YWNBU to consider your own boundaries and what you feel able to do for him, bearing in mind all your other commitments. It sounds as if it’s the caring and responsibility and time that are the issues, and the hearing aids are just the straw that broke the camels back. But I think there’s a danger here that you end up justifying stepping back a bit based on his refusal to wear hearing aids- ie it’s his fault- and that isn’t fair. It is nobody’s fault really- he needs a lot of care and understanding and too much of that is falling on you. Maybe better to work out what you would be happy with in terms of time spent and commitment, and then see what other options there are to fill the gaps. I suspect when you’re not feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility generally the hearing aid issue will seem less troublesome.

@TheTreeLightsAreFuckingMeOffNow YABU, I have hearing aids and don't wear them alot for numerous reasons.

They cause excess wax buildup, they cause my ears to itch after a while (I have tried many different cones and types).
They can have distortion at times especially in wind ect, in certain situations they can add to being overwhelmed by sounds.

They are not a fix all and you should not be judging someone on their use.

I think looking after an elderly person is an extremely hard thing to do. And a lot of us are not able for it

So many elderly people refuse to have carers come in and help them, but then they just expect their child or grandchild to look after them.

No, we are not carers.

Please read my responses.

The sparing occasions where he's worn them, it's made a miraculous difference.

OP it's not your responsibility to look after your grandad.

Just stop doing it and tell him he needs to get a carer.

Alrighty then, what's the point of hearing aids at all!

Might as well bin them the ..

Completely this.

It's so unfair isn't it - stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm sorry you've been through this too. :(

My father imagined all sorts of scenarios, to being imprisoned for non-payment of bills - I would understand if he'd stopped opening envelopes which were only going to cause him stress. I don't think it's sensible to ascribe something to "being too lazy" unless you have looked for and eliminated all other reasons.

Me and mum have tried this.

He will sit in his same underwear and clothes for days (up to 5 days) when we backed away last time and he doesn't let carers in.

He will literally sit and rot on his own, which we can't let happen. It's inhumane.

I don't know what else we're to do