Hearing Loss or Trouble with Language

[zjillian]

I want to revisit the hearing loss problem. My husband has always had hearing loss but now he really has problems. However, I don't believe it is hearing loss. I'm not sure but I think it has more to do with language and attention and energy. He miss hears everything but has terrible trouble just processing language. I have to make sure I really have his attention. I need to clap my hands and have him look directly at me and speak very very slowly. It is hard to separate what is what. It also changes from moment to moment. It is like the reception is bad, too much static, bad weather in the brain. He does not understand gestures at all and his vision is such a problem. How complicated it all is. Just wondering what others experience with this.

Jill

Costa Rica

[DenB]

Hi Jill,

I keep thinking that my husband, Roy has hearing problems but sometimes he can hear things better than I can ie he can hear my mobile phone ringing or he can hear a comment made by someone, when I haven't heard, which I always thought was odd if he couldn't hear well!

I also have to repeat myself quite a few times when talking to him and if he isn't looking at me he doesn't answer.

If there is background noise or other people are talking he either can't understand or can't hear!

It makes me wonder now if it is that he just can't decipher the words at times ,after reading what you have said!

Someone else was talking the other day on a post about their husband having hearing problems, all of a sudden...perhaps they will read our posts.

Thanks Jill, how's your weather..balmy, I bet. Cold and wet here!

D x

[cabbagecottage in reply to DenB]

Are you sure you are not living in our house lol

seriously though , Long before my husband started to struggle I had been struggling to keep conversation going with him . he would look blankly at me and not answer . I use to ask him if I was boring him !! .

it's as if the brain becomes scrambled I use to joke again and tell by the time he had work out what I was talking about he would have forgotten the question in the first place .

looking back further I now understand why if we were in company or even on our own and in middle on. Concoversatuon he would suddenjoy start talking about something completely different .

I think it had been his way of coping with the problem and neither of us realising that he even had one .

I use to get embarrassed O didn't want others to think he was rude .

Ezpect you are finding that they cannot read or follow Tv like they use to .

he does use hearing aids which does help until he gets tired .

you mentioned eyes . have they ever said that they can see people or animal in the room . if the havent , ask if they have . john didn't say for a long time bout I had read previously that it could happen so could reassure him . not that it frightened him in the first place .

[cabbagecottage in reply to cabbagecottage]

it's very wearing isn't it and difficult to read the face especially when they come out with a different word for the answer than they intended .

[zjillian in reply to DenB]

Interesting reply...thank you. So much is going wrong in their brain that it could be anything. I really don't think it is hearing..I don't think they recognize the words and can anticipate the meaning so they hear something all jumbled up and nonsensical.

Weather has been cold and windy but today is beautiful warm and sunny. and most important..NO SNOW..

J.

[Heady]

Hi Jill, S does not have a hearing problem. But there are loads of times, when he seems to just ignore me. When I ask him to at least acknowledge that I have spoken, he will answer my question, as if he had already answered it. I Sometimes think, that he thinks he has answered my question, but if you watch him, his facial movements have not changed.

Interested in your comments Cabbagecottage, S would always be suddenly changing the subject, I have always presumed that he was bored with what everyone else was talking about and always hated small talk. Another thing he was always doing was start talking in the middle of a sentence, so I wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about! Sometimes he would get cross, at my "stupidity", other times, would say that his brain was working faster than he could talk and he thought he had started the conversation at the beginning! As I am typing this, I realise this was PSP rearing its ugly head, long, long long time before anything was wrong!!!

How many more symptoms have we missed along the way? But would we want to know 20years before, that our loved ones would have to suffer the way they are. Still, the researchers should know all this knowledge. I do hope that some read this page!!!

Note to everyone: if you have a student in any consulting room, tell them about HEALTHUNLOCKED and that they should read all the blogs!!! You never know....................

Lots of love

Heady

[zjillian]

Personally I think the PSP signs were extremely early. The more I look back I can see slow changes with me taking over more and more of the more complicated tasks and some really crazy problems with anything mechanical...like the lamp being unplugged and B. thinking it was broken. It was our joke for a while..his non-mechanical ability.

I always knew that Bob would get something because both his parents and grandparents on both sides had neurological diseases and his father died of PSP, mother of Alzheimer's. They used to say it wasn't hereditary but they have since changed their minds about that.

j.