What To Do When You're Struggling To Keep Up With Conversations

18 February 2015

Jaime Allen

When you begin to notice that conversations are difficult to follow, whether you are talking to someone one on one or in small or large groups,you wonder why you cannot quite keep up. The answer is almost always a problem with your ability to hear and interpret all of the sounds (in this case voices) going on around you. In other words, you hearing is starting to fail you.

While this is frustrating and not being able to follow a conversation can be embarrassing, it is not an unsolvable problem. So, get to know what you can do to get yourself back in the midst of those conversations, able to hear and follow what is going on around you. 

Go To The Doctor

The first step you need to take when you find yourself struggling with conversations is to head to the doctor. Most likely, the culprit for your struggles is your ears and hearing. Your physician will be able to test your hearing and tell you the extent of the damage (if any) and prescribe you with the proper treatment. Most likely the treatment will be in the form of hearing amplification devices.

However, the primary reason that you need to seek medical attention right away is that there are other reasons you could be having difficulty following a conversation (or several conversations). Chronic fatigue can make your mental processes fuzzy and is treatable if properly diagnosed, for example. Additional possible causes for your difficulties could be early-onset dementia, other neurological or mental disorders, or even a mini stroke. The key is to seek medical care so that you can rule out these serious potential causes for your struggles to follow a conversation. 

What To Do If It Is Your Hearing

If you are among the majority and it turns out to be your hearing that is the root cause of your struggles, your next step will be to try to improve your hearing. This means hearing amplification devices.

Now, if your hearing loss is minor, you may not yet need to take the step to purchase full-blown hearing aids. You may be able to use personal hearing amplification devices for those specific situations that cause you difficulty. Small devices that look like the hands-free cell phone ear pieces can actually be used to turn up the volume on every day sounds when you need them to, but make sure your doctor approves the use of such devices and helps you set the volume to the appropriate level so as to not cause further hearing damage.

However, if you have moderate to severe hearing loss, hearing amplification devices are the treatment of choice. Luckily hearing aids are not what they once were. Many are extremely discrete and hardly noticeable as they sit inside your ears. They are also more easy to control and some can even be digitally connected to your smart phone to set the volume for specific locations and situations. 

As you can see, the steps you need to take when you are struggling to keep up with conversations are fairly straightforward and easy. So, get started right away to rule out any serious medical conditions and get back to being a contributing member to those conversations. 

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