Ernie does the same thing. He is deaf in one ear so doesn't wear a hearing aid. My thoughts are as the disease progresses he has more difficulty processing words.

Dementia slows down the rate at which the brain processes signals coming in from all the senses. For someone with hearing difficulty, where the signal reaching the brain is already weak, I guess the difficulty is compounded. You just have to imagine listening to a conversation where each word takes a fraction of a second longer than real time to register and understand. After a couple of sentences you’d be way behind the chat and totally confused.

Jackie was told at diagnosis that her speech and understanding would be particularly affected, and so it transpired. She was affected from the start had absolutely none of either for the last 6 years of her life.

My husband refuses to wear his hearing aids so when I need to raise my volume when speaking, he thinks I'm being critical. I'm at a loss trying to just make every day small talk. Today I've chosen the silent mode since he seems so agitated. I try to be mindful of my voice not being loud enough & to speak to him face to face but I'm still in training. Yesterday we received a diagnosis of his need for a pacemaker due to his very slow heart rate. I may be grasping at straws in hoping that this may have an effect on his mild cognitive impairment. Don't know if my rambling makes any sense but I appreciate the opportunity to vent anyway...

My Mom is 85 and I had her and my 103 yr old Grma move in with me 2 yrs ago after Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was at that time hard of hearing and wearing hearing aids. Over the last 2 yrs, her ability to hear has gotten so much worse. At the last appointment where an otologist checks her hearing, she said Mom was now completely deaf in her right ear. Instructed her to quit wearing the right hearing aid, as the sound coming in the right hearing aid was just scrambling the sound to her left. I don’t understand exactly how all that works, but she did it and it did seem to help. However, as time has gone on, she is having trouble again. I’m wondering now if it is the Alzheimer’s and she is just not able to understand what is being said. Idk 🤷🏼‍♀️

My husband has been wearing hearing aids for several years now. As his dementia worsens, I find more and more that I have to repeat myself a number of times before he gets what I’m talking about. I believe part of it is that he can’t just focus on what I am saying. Often he will repeat what he thinks I said, and it doesn’t make any sense.