One of the different forms of elder abuse is neglect. For many hearing-impaired older Australians neglect can happen unintentionally by others like family, friends or carers. Read this article on the full picture of how to recognise hearing loss and how to better support someone with hearing loss.
This helpful article discusses how older people are highly reliant on their hearing devices and other strategies (such as positioning and room acoustics) to communicate, understand what is happening around them, and to express their preferences and opinions. If a caregiver fails to support them in accessing and using these strategies, the effect can amount to neglect.
As an example, the caregiver may miss the older person’s scheduled hearing appointments or fail to help them manage, wear and care for their hearing aids. Either of these oversights can contribute to making the older person vulnerable in other settings.
Similarly, with lipreading being so important to people with hearing loss, this can pose problems too.
Continue reading this fabulous resource from Compass that shares plenty of helpful facts and strategies. The full article is here on their website.