November 2021 Meeting Blog - Tips and Tricks for Living with Hearing Loss

At the November 2021 meeting, Tony and Sharon shared their tips and tricks for living with hearing loss. Tony and Sharon have been married for 55 years (38 of the happiest years of their lives)!!

Tips and tricks

• Always carry extra hearing aid batteries
• Keep your hearing aids clean
• Keep regular appointments to check your devices
• Use your Bluetooth. It makes phone calls and connecting to televisions much easier
• Use a medical alert bracelet and add hearing loss
• Health App on your phone to list allergies, vaccinations, and hearing loss. It’s not just that you have it, you have to learn how to use it. Go to where you bought your phone and they can probably help you or better yet, ask your child or grandchildren and they can definitely help you.
• Understand the bells and whistles about your own hearing aids and devices. Some even have Aqua case for wet environments.
• This is the best time in history to be hearing impaired because of the amazing technology.
• Use captions which is good for the brain and good for understanding
• Identify your cell phone accessibility settings and TDD options
• Get better at texting. Texting allows clear communication for all people
• Try a sound bar for your television. It brings the sound to the front of the tv and sometimes helps with clarity
• When shopping by phone and a voice gets muffled, simply ask if they can switch to a handheld phone instead of a headset. You can also ask for a US representative if the accent is too difficult to understand. Try live chat!
• Forget drive thru! Simply drive up to the window and order face to face.

Try these strategies

• Look directly at the person you are speaking to
• Sometimes tv hosts talk over each other so much not even the captioning can makes sense of it. In the hearing loss, only one speaker can speak at a time. Do not interrupt- either speak or listen but don’t try to do both!
• Choose a good hearing environment to communicate with people. Best hearing environment is one-on-one. Create an environment where you can be heard and understood and others can be heard and understood.
• FaceTime and Zoom are great programs and excellent ways to communicate. Speak with family members instead of using the phone. Save a drive to the doctor by using a virtual appt.
• When communicating with your partner, use gentle ways to remind them to speak to your eyes. And be honest with your friends, families and strangers. Try tapping on a shoulder or gently ask them to repeat themselves, instead of using the awful response of “Huh?” Instead try “Could you do me a favor?”
• Instead of using self-checkout, go to an aisle with a cashier for easier checkouts. Or go straight to customer service.