Hearing aid maintenance

This morning I was «my» home for elderly people to clean the hearing aids and change the tubes or filters for residents who needed this. It was a first attempt on my part to support residents and staff with hearing aids and it is my intention to do this once a month.
I am not an acoustician, but I am pretty familiar with the care/cleaning of hearing aids. I clean my hearing aids myself every day before they go into the dry box and have them cleaned regularly by an acoustician. But in an home for eldery people, hearing aids are an extra effort for both residents and staff. That’s why I came up with the idea for these visits. Furthermore, if there were any problems with the hearing aids, I would have a direct line to an acoustician, could get advice or possibly accompany the residents to the acoustician.

There were 3 residents to visit today for the hearing aid cleaning – I visit the residents in the room, this is easier and more private – although actually 5 residents were foreseen, but unfortunately 2 residents had recently died.
I took time for each resident and everything went well. But I had to realize that it is a bit more difficult to put the hearing aid on again for other people, especially if they are lying in bed. Also, next time I won’t clean both earpieces at the same time, but one after another.
Firstly, this has the advantage that people still can hear me a little with one ear , secondly I cannot confuse the left earpiece with the right (and vice versa) … In practice you learn!

Carefully I had taken everything necessary with me, from cleaning tablets to tissues and extra tube, but except tissues the residents had everything already there themselves.
In advance I had visited my acoustician and asked if he would be willing to provide some tubes and filters and, kindly, that was no problem.
Residents and staff were happy about my visit and one of the visited residents I still knew from my previous visits to the home for elderly people. Although she didn’t recognize me anymore, I found it nice to see her again. After all, the visits have a social aspect as well as a useful one and our older generation can use some extra attention.

After a good hour and a half I was finished and said goodbye again. In one month I plan to visit the home for elderly peopel again and hopefully everything will go as today, or even better.