Losing Hearing Aids

[Josh in Flintshire]

My wife was diagnosed with mixed dementia nearly 5 years ago. She lives in a dementia care home, with nursing support. She wears hearing aids with a behind ear microphone connected to an in-ear ear piece. These work very well. Without them she becomes even more withdrawn.
Unfortunately she has lost two of them in the last month. We assume that for some reason she takes them out and puts them down, somewhere but cannot be questioned on where. She is mobile and walks around the home so they could be anywhere in the home.
I did replace the first one she lost, with help from the insurance company. I don't know if they will replace this second one so soon afterwards.

Without the hearing aids she is a different person so I really, really want her to wear them but I despair in solving the problem.
Does anyone have any idea on how we can help my wife to stop losing her hearing aids.

 

[Helly68]

@Josh in Flintshire - my Mum never had hearing aids, but we lost a number of other things.
The aids are key, so I would speak to the manager and ask if (when she has a set) a photo can be taken of them, and added to her file, so the staff know these must be checked each day and searched for if lost. That said, losing things is a regular occurence in homes.
Might be worth explaining the issue to the hearing aids supplier/insurer who may have come across this before. Some small items can be engraved with initials which may help identification

 

[Sarasa]

Hi @Josh in Flintshire, and a very warm welcome to Dementia Talking Point.
I can well understand how different things must seem to your wife without her aids. I'm severely deaf and feel very distanced from things if I'm not wearing them. The trouble is they are not particularly comfortable, and if your wife is beginning to forget why she needs them I can see why she takes them out and loses them. My mum denied she'd ever worn glasses even though she wore them for more than half her life. It might be worth the home checking things like waste paper bins in case she is throwing them away. Hopefully they will turn up, my mother's false teeth turned up after going AWOL for about six months.
The other thing is to try and get your wife NHS aids. There is probably a long wait and I don't know how amenable she would be to all the tests but at least it wouldn't be costing you a packet. I did wonder if there were any very small trackers you could attach to the aids, but a quick search didn't find any that look small enoufh

 

[canary]

Have you labelled the hearing aids with her name @Josh in Flintshire ?
Quite often the office has hearing aids that have been found, but they dont know who they belong to.