What Should I Do When My Parent Can’t Hear Me (Or Speak My Language)

By Kim Brant-Lucich, co-author of Survival Guide to Caring for Aging Parents

If you’ve ever typed “what should I do if my elderly parent is hard of hearing” or “how do I find a caregiver who speaks my parent’s language” into a search bar at 11:00 p.m., you’re not alone, and you’re in the right place. This is perhaps one of the most common — and most under-addressed — challenges in caring for aging parents. Here’s what I learned, the hard way, over twenty years.

“What? I can’t hear you. Oh, never mind.” I wish I had a dollar for every time my mother said those words. Although her hearing loss occurred later in life, it played such a dominant role in my relationship with her during the last twenty years of her life that I can hardly remember a time when she wasn’t hard of hearing. “Oh, never mind” was her way of giving up, and she said it so often that my husband and I took up the mantra as a form of comic relief.

Hearing loss is one of the most common conditions the elderly experience. In fact, it’s so common that it’s expected; rather than try to correct it, caregivers and family members just talk louder, often shouting. Doctors advise getting hearing aids, but are far less inclined to advocate strongly for that, in the same way they would with medications for memory loss or depression. In any event, hearing aid technology continues to advance every year, but the quality of products remains highly variable. The plethora of hearing aids in the market have different functionality and technology, differing levels of effectiveness and wide variation in cost. The type of hearing aid one purchases may depend solely on the type of hearing loss a person is experiencing, or the purchase decision may depend almost entirely on the cost of the aid. Hearing aids are rarely covered fully by insurance, though some insurance plans or Medicare supplements may provide a miniscule allowance for them. The result is that their members often opt out of getting hearing aids, or they select a model they can afford and, sadly, you often get what you pay for. Nonetheless, something is usually better than nothing.

When my mother needed hearing aids, I went with her for the exam to a highly recommended hearing center, and we purchased hearing aids for several thousand dollars, which I paid for. She wore them for a while and then stopped, or maybe I should more accurately say she gave up. She claimed that they didn’t work. Her biggest problem was with specific pitches, and she had trouble hearing any high-pitched tones. She once had her house alarm beeping for several days. Neighbors complained but my mother heard nothing. When I showed up, I found the sound to be deafening but, as it was a high-pitched beep, it was out of her hearing range. Voices were the same for her. My husband’s deep voice was perfect. She never had trouble hearing him. Admittedly, he always looked her in the face and spoke slowly, because he had figured out that she was lip-reading. My voice, fortunately, is also in a lower register, yet I still found it necessary to shout when talking to her. Every once in a while, she would say, “Stop yelling.” These days, I get the same “stop yelling” from my husband because he is having more difficulty hearing as well, and rather than me walking ten extra steps to talk into his “good ear,” I often just say it louder.

As common as hearing loss is, with the advent of social media and things like AirPods and headphones, our ears are being challenged daily. I know that my hearing has been affected by long-term use of headphones and proximity to locations with loud decibels of noise. Like my mother, I have trouble with high-pitched voices and excessive ambient noise. Forget about trying to talk to me if a fan is on or if any water is running. Several years ago, when I very briefly felt like a train was driving through my ear, I had my hearing checked. I really wasn’t concerned about hearing loss at the time, but I did want the whooshing sound to stop. The doctor shoved a thin tube down my ear canal so I could try out an “aid.” It sounded like an amplifier was playing in my ear, literally — a loudspeaker with static. My immediate reaction was “thanks, but no thanks.” One of these days, I’ll get my hearing re-checked, since I have more frequent instances of missing things people are saying (or increased use of subtitles when watching television). When I do get my hearing checked again, it will be at a different location than last time.

So What Should You Actually Do?

Here’s where I want to get practical, because this is the question I hear most often: how do you address a loved one’s hearing loss — or a language barrier — without it turning into a daily shouting match?

Start when you’re choosing a living situation or hiring a caregiver. Pay attention to the caregiver’s speaking voice, and watch your parent’s reaction. Do they say “what?” constantly? Do they nod along, pretending to understand, only to ask you confused questions later that make it obvious they didn’t catch a word? Those are the tells.

Now let’s go a step further, because this is where it gets more complicated than just volume. Many caregivers in the United States are non-native English speakers. Their English is accented and, since a majority of them are women, their voices often sit in a higher register. That combination was a nightmare for my mother. She always struggled to understand, and had very short patience. She also struggled with native English speakers who had non-American dialects — people from the UK, Australia, Ireland, even the Deep South of the US. A high-pitched voice paired with an unfamiliar accent was always a recipe for disaster. I have enormous respect for the hardworking caregivers who tend to the elderly population — many have left their home countries for work opportunities here, and while they speak English fluently, a hard-of-hearing older adult may still genuinely struggle to understand them.

And then there’s the flip side, which is its own, equally common question: what do you do if your parent isn’t a native English speaker at all? Maybe they spoke English with you at home for decades, but as they’ve aged, they’ve reverted almost entirely to their native language. This is incredibly common with dementia and cognitive decline, where the language learned earliest in life is often the language that remains longest. If that’s your situation, my honest advice is this: look for a caregiver who can converse with your parent in their native tongue — Spanish, Farsi, German, Yiddish, Mandarin, whatever it happens to be. Yes, it takes extra effort and extra interviewing to find that person. Do it anyway. Being able to speak, joke, and be understood in your first language is one of the most comforting things you can offer an aging parent, and it’s worth the search.

It’s often said that “no two people are alike.” There’s a thread of truth to that, but it’s always best to meet people where they are. If someone is hard of hearing, make accommodations for them, the same way you’d provide a cane, walker, or wheelchair for a mobility issue. Explore hearing aids. Understand the specific nature of the hearing loss — pitch, ambient noise, whatever it is. And if language is the barrier instead of (or in addition to) hearing, treat that with the same seriousness. Do whatever you can to create an environment where your loved one can hear others, be understood, and feel heard themselves.

If you’re navigating this — or any of the hundred other things nobody warns you about when you become the person in charge of your parents’ care — that’s exactly what we cover in Survival Guide to Caring for Aging Parents. It’s the book I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago.