“It’s Never Too Early Or Too Late To Get Hearing Aids” – Mary Harris’ Story
November 15, 2021

“It’s Never Too Early Or Too Late To Get Hearing Aids” – Mary Harris’ Story

As we focus during May on celebrating Older Americans Month and Better Hearing and Speech Month, longtime Johnson Audiology patient Mary Harris’ journey to better hearing is a fitting one for the telling
You see, now 108 years old, Mrs. Harris got her first set of hearing aids at 103, proving that, as she says “it’s never too early or too late to address your own hearing health care.”


Interviewing Mrs. Harris, a resident of Signal Mountain’s Alexian Village, for this feature was indeed an interesting hour as she recounted a life spent watching the world change in very drastic ways. At the time of this interview last Fall 2018, the world was marking the 100 th anniversary of Armistice Day, that pivotal historic milestone when the cessation of hostilities between the Allies and Germany became official, and the world’s bloodiest war—at least up to that point—drew to a close.


Mrs. Harris remembers that day—November 11, 1918—well as she says the whole world seemed to come together to take a deep, collective sigh of relief and celebrate the end of World War I. People around the world had been instructed to go outside and join together with neighbors and friends for a time of reflection, commemoration and celebration “on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Mrs. Harris says she and her family did just that. “I was seven years old at the time, and I remember mother giving me pots and pans and spoons to make noise with. We went out on the front lawn, and all up and down the street our neighbors were out doing the same,” Mrs. Harris relates. One hundred years later, Mrs. Harris remembers vividly the sounds from that day, punctuating how our sense of hearing can mentally cement the events that pave the foundation of our life’s story and link us together with others.


For more than 95 years, Mrs. Harris engaged with her world through sound with seemingly little to no hearing loss, quite a feat since the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders shows that an estimated 28.8 million Americans could benefit from hearing aids as a way of addressing their hearing loss.


As is often the case in families where a member has hearing loss, one of Mrs. Harris’ daughters was the first to notice when her mother started asking her to repeat herself.  The issue seemed less pronounced when she was looking straight at her mom, a common warning sign of hearing loss since the individual is filling in the gaps by lip-reading. “Reading lips and gestures tends to be a common coping mechanism for people with hearing loss,” says Megan Johnson, Au.D., the founder of Johnson Audiology. “A person’s brain is having to work overtime when they are challenged with hearing loss. This can lead to ‘listening fatigue’ that can affect the person in a myriad of ways from decreased awareness of surroundings, which can cause safety concerns, to accelerated brain tissue loss over time.”



Mrs. Harris is the perfect example of a person who took control of her own hearing health, not waiting years to be tested and fit with hearing aids. Fewer than 30% of those with hearing loss have ever actually used hearing aids. In fact, research suggests that most hearing aid users wait at least 10 years after the onset of their hearing loss to seek intervention.


While Mrs. Harris says she was a bit resistant when her daughter first mentioned it, she quickly realized that being able to hear her friends and family was a simple quality of life choice and that stubbornness was not going to cause her to miss out on engaging fully in the world around her. Johnson says, “I remember Mrs. Harris’ first appointment in the summer of 2014 when she was 103 years old. I applaud her choice to act quickly.”


Johnson goes on to say that for those who are candidates, hearing aids treat hearing loss by giving the user access to sounds they are unable to detect with their ears alone, improving speech understanding and awareness of environmental sounds. “One of the first things Mrs. Harris mentioned to me at her hearing diagnostic appointment was her difficulty in understanding normal speech,” Johnson says. The large population of patients with untreated hearing loss is not only missing out on these direct benefits, but also are at risk for additional physical and psychological health issues.


Hearing loss affects every individual differently, but research has identified numerous potential negative consequences that are more likely to arise in people who are hearing impaired. One of the most basic concerns with untreated hearing loss is general safety. Sounds such as alarms, sirens, car horns, or verbal  warnings can signal threats to personal safety, prompting individuals to react accordingly and protect themselves. Inability to detect these signals can therefore put a person in danger.


The list goes on, Johnson says. “Decreased environmental sound awareness also has been associated with an increased risk of falling and thus for injury. Hearing loss has an emotional impact as well. It is linked to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, frustration, and social isolation. This likely stems from the impaired communication that results from declined speech understanding,” she says.These connections highlight the importance of addressing hearing loss as soon as it is noticed. Whether seeking intervention, concerned about a medical issue, or simply monitoring hearing status, Johnson says that “we all need to start thinking of addressing our hearing health as just another way of addressing our overall body health.”


Mrs. Harris continues to have appointments with Johnson Audiology whenever she needs supplies, regular maintenance or a programming adjustment on her hearing aids. The audiologists from Johnson Audiology visit once a month to offer various hearing health care services to Alexian residents. Additionally, all five of offices of Johnson Audiology are accepting new patients.


Mrs. Harris’ suggestion to others about hearing aids is as no-nonsense and straightforward as her seven-year-old self banging on pots and pans at the Armistice Day celebration: “If you need hearing aids, I would say you need to get them.” Sound advice from this lady who has heard a few things in her 108 years.

Untreated hearing loss is changing your brain

By Jan Hollingsworth • May 16, 2024
Research reveals that hearing loss actually rewires your neural pathways Your Amazing Brain Your brain is an amazing organ! This wrinkly, reddish-pink mass weighs about the same as your two-slice toaster, tipping the scales at about three pounds. Acting as a master control center, your brain enables every thought, breath, eye blink, heartbeat, movement—everything—that happens in your body. Rivaling the world’s most powerful supercomputer, your brain can download, process, and react in milliseconds to the tidal wave of information coming from your eyes, skin, nose, tongue, and ears. Neuroplasticity and Your Sense of Hearing Researchers have discovered that the human nervous system—made up of the brain, spinal cord, and a complex network of nerves—has incredible capacity to modify itself, both in function and physical structure. This is called neural plasticity . Dr. Megan Johnson, audiologist and owner of Johnson Audiology explains, “Neural plasticity is going gangbusters in a child’s brain as the child develops and matures into adulthood. Based on years of brain research, we also know that the adult brain is far from being fixed. It, too, changes and adapts when you learn new information or skills or as a response to stress, hormonal fluctuations, drug interactions, injury, and much more.” Dr. Johnson also relates that “your brain displays neuroplasticity when you experience hearing loss.” By measuring brain waves using an electroencephalograph, or EEG, scientists have studied how the brain of a person with hearing loss functions compared to a person with normal hearing. The results are both fascinating and sobering as studies reveal that, in those with hearing loss, the portion of the brain devoted to hearing becomes reorganized. This can be true even with early-stage, mild hearing loss, and the process happens quickly, often in months rather than years. The Hearing Center of Your Brain and Beyond What is actually happening when this takes place? Your brain has a right and a left hemisphere and six major lobes. Think of your frontal lobe as your brain’s boss, where executive functions like decision making, emotion and impulse control, and planning occur. Your temporal lobe, which contains the auditory cortex, is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to interpreting sounds and assigning those sounds meaning. The temporal lobe processes speech and language, and it is where initial learning of new information takes place, which is the first step for logging that information into memory. Dr. Johnson goes on to relate, “When the delicate infrastructure of your ear has become damaged through noise exposure, infection, etc. leading to hearing loss, your auditory cortex cries out to your frontal lobe, saying ‘Help! Help! I’m not receiving any sound to process, so I feel lost.’ The frontal lobe ‘boss’ jumps to attention, and your occipital lobe, responsible for processing vision and touch, takes over the areas in which hearing is normally processed. In other words, your other senses seek to compensate for the deficit due to the loss of your sense of hearing.” Amazing, right? So, where’s the rub? Picture a car assembly line; each worker has an assigned task. One day, the worker who installs the windshields is absent, and the worker who attaches the rearview mirrors is assigned double duty, and a duty that was not part of job training. It is easy to see how the worker left juggling both jobs is compromised, and a car might slip through minus a rear view mirror. Similarly, the areas of your brain that are being taxed to make up for a lack of hearing are overloaded and less able to do their assigned responsibilities. “This explains why so many of my patients with hearing loss relate feeling exhausted and frustrated after a big family gathering—where multiple talkers and sounds must be interpreted—rather than happy and invigorated by the experience. We call this listening fatigue ,” states Dr. Johnson. Additionally, when left untreated long enough, researchers point to the brain’s reorganization due to hearing loss as a significant correlation with dementia. Hearing Technology and Your Brain “But here's the great news!” Dr. Johnson says. When a person is fit with hearing aids or a cochlear implant and sound is restored, the brain has the ability to adjust back—partially or completely—to proper function. How swiftly that happens often depends on how long the hearing loss went untreated and is why she encourages patients to treat hearing loss sooner rather than later. “Here is what I tell patients who are downplaying the importance of hearing: If you won’t treat your hearing loss for the sake of your ears, do it for your brain!”

Move from the Gunbarrel Road office to a new and larger office will allow Johnson Audiology to help even more people in the Chattanooga region

By Jan Hollingsworth • January 9, 2024
Johnson Audiology is pleased to announce that the practice will be moving one of its Chattanooga area offices from its current location on Gunbarrel Road to a new location at 6830 Lee Highway. The move will take place January 15. “We are extremely excited to be re-locating to a much larger space later this month,” Dr. Megan Johnson, founder and owner of the award-winning practice, says. “About a year ago, we realized that we needed more room to meet the needs of our growing patient base so we could help even more people with hearing loss. We sought a place that would allow us to stay in the East Brainerd/Hamilton Place area so that the office would still be conveniently located for patients. Our Hixson office will remain at 5617 Highway 153, Suite 203 and is also being upgraded with a second sound booth and beautiful new decor. These two strategically located offices mean that we can continue to serve patients who live east and west of the Tennessee River.” Dr. Johnson says that when she identified the building on Lee Highway, she knew it was an ideal site for this next growth leap. “Our company culture is anchored on the premise of always offering an exceptional patient experience,” she says. “Thanks to our wonderful family of Johnson Audiology patients, we have outgrown our current office and have found the perfect location for offering the best care to even more of our Chattanooga neighbors.” The new location offers many positive features that will benefit patients: The office is conveniently located off Lee Highway in the area between Shallowford Road and Hickory Valley Road, directly behind Dr. Keith B. Dressler’s orthodontic practice. It is a stand-alone office that is not shared with any other businesses. The building is more than 4,000 square feet, which is double the space of the current office on Gunbarrel Road. The added square footage will accommodate a spacious patient welcome and reception area, three sound booths for hearing testing, and a private area for patient check-out. The building has exam rooms for four full time audiologists and an audiology assistant, a large front desk area, and a sizeable lab for hearing aid maintenance and repair. The office has ample space for the practice’s growing Cochlear Implant (CI) Program with a dedicated sound booth and exam area just for CI patients. The building design allows for easy circular patient flow throughout the office. The building has a dedicated, 20-space parking lot just for Johnson Audiology patients and additional parking for Johnson Audiology staff. Dr. Johnson mentions that the building was a non-medical office previously, so updates were needed to bring it up to par for a bustling hearing health care clinic. It currently is being remodeled, and the parking lot resurfaced. “We have plans to transition to the new building by January 15 with some final touches to the office’s aesthetics continuing through the spring,” she says.  Dr. Johnson wishes to assure folks that measures are in place to alleviate disruption to the service patients receive during this time and thanks patients in advance for their continued support and understanding during the transition. “The new office is going to be incredible!” she says. Initial correspondence has been delivered to patients about the move. Dr. Johnson says, “Patients who have appointments scheduled in early January or those who need walk-in service for hearing aid maintenance and supplies from now until January 15 should continue visiting the Gunbarrel Road location.” Dr. Johnson says, “In February, we will invite our friends and neighbors in the Chattanooga community to an open house celebration, where we will do an official reveal of the new space!” Johnson Audiology has been faithfully serving the citizens of Chattanooga since the practice opened its doors on October 1, 2009. “As we prepare to celebrate our 15th anniversary this year, the new office location on Lee Highway and the upgrades to the Hixson office are evidence of our commitment to patients.” Dr. Johnson goes on to say, “Chattanoogans have named Johnson Audiology Best of the Best in the category of Favorite Audiologist and Hearing Aid Clinic for 11 years straight. And they consistently name Johnson Audiology in the top three in the category of Best Customer Service among all Chattanooga businesses. We seek to live up to those accolades daily!” Dr. Johnson concludes, “One of our patients, Mr. Van Tenpenny, recently had this to say about us: ‘My visit to Johnson Audiology has been life changing! After decades of hearing loss, I am able to hear normal conversations in any environment.’ It is our highest ideal to be here for Mr. Tenpenny and the thousands of other patients like him who prioritize their hearing for the best quality of life.” Do you want to get on the road to healthy hearing? Johnson Audiology is currently accepting new patients at all locations. Call today to schedule an appointment or book online at www.johnsonaudiology.com/schedule.
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