Hearing Loss due to Ageing Problem

Yesterday morning, I took a day's leave to bring mother for her medical review at the Queenstown Polyclinic at Stirling Road.

It has been almost a year since we last visit this psychiatrist, Dr Kua. In view that mother has not been encountering any relapse being medication-free, hence, this visit was just a procedure to renew mother's 'open-date' entry so that if she were to relapse again within the next 1 year (touch-wood)... then she would still be able to enjoy subsidised rate for her consultation and medical fees...

But in this visit, Dr Kua, brought up the issue that mother may be suffering from hearing loss due to old age. This is because when he conversed with mother, mother seemed not to be able to hear or understand what he said... and in the event, she 答非所问. He was worried that this hearing impairment may result to any misunderstanding and inconvenience between mother and the family members or when she meet outsiders...

So, he suggested to refer mother to see ENT. He helped us called up Alexandra to make an appt in the afternoon to see the ENT.

We arrived at Alexandra on time. The lady doctor checked my mother's ears using a scope, wow, she found her ears all stuff with waxes... So she used equipment like forceps to pull out the hardened waxes and used the vacuum to suck out those not-so-harden waxes...and the whole duration took about 20 mins...

After that, mother was directed to the Audio room to do a hearing test.

The result was unfavourable... the minimum level of sounds that mother could hear was the sound level that when we speak normally... but she will not be able to know exactly what words we say... she would not be able to hear sounds softer than our normal speaking tone, just like losing the sensitivity to soft or faint sounds... In order for her to know what we are saying to her, she would need to look into our face and mouth (lip-read)...and this is what have been happening... but we didn't notice over these years....

The suggestion was to get her a hearing aid, but it is not cheap... The doctor says it ranges from min $1000 over....and if mother does not want to put it on, it would be a waste of money also...

So, in the meantime, we will try to lead as normal, just that we have to speak louder to her and look at her into her eyes when speaking....

Seeing the conditions of my parents now, i think ageing is really no joke... so many problems will come... hearing loss, arthritis, diabetics, decreasing eyesight, grey/white hairs.....

I don't want to get old................I need to find the 长生不老药!