Dear Irish68~
My hearing injury happened a long time ago, and was work-related so my hearing aids have been given to me ever since. Every tme new technology came along they were replaced. Now of course the deterioration is making things closer to the stage of real hassles a lot of the time.
Up until very recently -the last 4/5 years I think - the aids amplified all the wrong things, and if you turned up the volume then yes you got a real mess of sounds going in. You could hear an ant in sneakers 100 m behind you but the person in front was muffled and garbled. Cutlery generated white noise as did other things.
Now these new ones are out of sight better (just as well, I'd not longer gain a lot of benefit form the older type ones).
The aids have to be individually matched to your ears, which first tales a lot of testing with headphones & computer by a experience qualified (i.e.Uni) audiologist to get an accurate profile of what hearing is available, then aids are programmed to enhance and make best use of that remaining hearing. It even involves using a little tube along with the aid in the ear so the actual sound heard vie the aid is charted.
This is lengthy and very expensive, but I've been amazed at the results. Taken together with sensible steps like no noisy environment, back to a wall so nothing from behind, sound dead rooms, only conversing with those close by. It all makes a huge difference.
Accessories can be used so phone or TV can go straight into the aids wihtout cranking the TV volume up to window shattering levels.
As one's hearing changes, so the programming can be changed to match.
This is probably all rather more information than you need:)
Hope this helps, you Mum's life must be so limited (and maybe scary) at the moment.
Croix
