One of the downsides of a long life is the deterioration of hearing among seniors. Mine - once normal - has gotten kinda bad, an audiologist estimated I have about 25% of normal hearing. I've worn hearing aids for over a decade.
With them you and I could sit in a quiet room and, presuming I can see your face, carry on a reasonable conversation. Put me in a noisy neighborhood party in someone's family room with six different conversations going on at once and my hearing aids are overwhelmed. Ditto in a noisy restaurant.
Hearing aids are designed to magnify the audio frequencies of the human voice but many voices at once are too much. I can't sort out the one I'm trying to focus on from all the equally amplified background speech.
I go to parties and restaurants, I sit there looking pleasant and interested but I am basically disconnected from the flow of conversation. Because of that, the parties are social obligations I willingly perform but do not happily anticipate. In restaurants I concentrate on eating, the pleasure of which has not diminished. I let others carry the conversation.
The other DrC and I always have the subtitles turned on for TV or a movie at home, we both find them helpful, if occasionally incomplete or laughably incorrect. Our last couple of attempts at seeing a film at a theater found us guessing at the dialog, and we haven't gone back.
If you have an older friend whose hearing is diminished, please encourage them to get hearing aids. They are not perfect but they keep us from being isolated except as noted above.
New ones are rechargeable overnight while you sleep. A very nice feature is that they can Bluetooth directly with your smart phone, enable this for sure. A set of aids will last about 5 years, I'm on my third pair and wouldn't willingly be without them.
Here's an unsolicited plug for Costco hearing aids. If you have a peripatetic lifestyle like the DrsC, the advantage beyond lower cost is that wherever you go, there is a Costco you can stop at and get them serviced free of charge while you shop.
Their data base will show you bought the aids from Costco. They service what they sell and are - in my experience - uniformly helpful. Recently they connected the other DrC's aids with a new cell phone.
Hearing loss is associated with age-related dementia, via isolation. Don't be ashamed to wear aids, I still have to ask folks to repeat speech more often than I'd like, but without them I would be lost.
