Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to deal with elder care long distance, but my father is making it much harder than it needs to be.

He is very hard of hearing but refuses to wear his hearing aids. He says they're not comfortable, etc., but his doctor and I think those are just excuses and it's ultimately a control issue. We got him a cordless phone with volume control, but he has trouble remembering how to operate it, and even with the volume turned up, sometimes he hears and understands what we are saying and sometimes he doesn't. He uses email, but it's hard to have a full back-and-forth conversation and get answers to everything that way, and at some point soon, he will probably find it too taxing to sit at his desk and type. He used to use Skype but won't use it anymore (no reason given) and doesn't want an iPad or a laptop computer.

He lives in assisted living, but he is declining and having more medical issues, and he won't hire an aide who can help out and serve as a go-between. The staff of the facility only do so much because they've got a lot of residents and are not on top of many things.

Communicating with him to understand what he might need, and what we need to do to help, is an exercise in frustration, involving shouting and repeating things over and over (and eventually feeling very frustrated and resentful and sometimes throwing up our hands in frustration and giving up) even when we are there in person. When we're not, we feel even more in the dark about what's happening.

Any advice would be appreciated. He has only mild cognitive issues; the main problem is that the difficult side of his personality is even more magnified as he's aged and lost a lot of independence.

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is hearing aids do no work with telephones. There is too much distortion. Any person I know with a hearing aid takes them out to talk on the phone.