The logo for johnson audiology is green and white.
Maintaining Healthy Hearing During Times of Upheaval
November 15, 2021

Maintaining Healthy Hearing During Times of Upheaval

A woman is sitting at a desk using a computer.

The world has changed significantly in a short period of time as COVID-19 has touched people’s lives in various ways. Additionally, many have been affected by severe weather in the Chattanooga area. Dr. Megan Johnson, audiologist and founder of Johnson Audiology, noted, “In these difficult times, healthy hearing is a must as we all seek to establish our new normal and stay informed and connected. At Johnson Audiology, we remain committed to helping people engage with their world through hearing, especially during emergencies.”


As we all seek to adapt to global and local stressors and struggles, maintaining healthy hearing is challenging but critical. Here are some tips for success. 


Address your hearing loss now rather than later

During times of crisis, it is paramount to hear. Consider this. Do you want to miss that crucial broadcast across your weather radio telling you to get to your safe place or not hear that essential instruction from your doctor if you are admitted to the hospital? In critical times, hearing could be a matter of life or death. If you have been putting off getting a hearing test, resolve now to make an appointment and begin your journey on the road to healthy hearing. For those who already have hearing aids, getting your hearing periodically re-tested helps monitor any changes in your hearing and allows you to get the most out of your hearing aids in case a programming adjustment is needed because your hearing has changed.


Assemble a hearing emergency kit

Many these days recognize that it is imperative to develop a family emergency plan to keep your family safe. If someone in your family wears hearing aids, be sure that those unique needs are factored into your emergency kit. Always have at least a two-month supply of batteries and other hearing aid supplies on hand. Consider having a back-up set of hearing aids in case your primary set is lost or damaged during an emergency or a shelter-at-home mandate prevents you from making your usual trip to your audiologist for a quick repair. Keep your hearing aids clean and in good working order by visiting your audiologist for regular maintenance appointments and by learning basic cleaning tips you can do at home on a weekly basis. If you use rechargeable hearing aids, talk with your audiologist about techniques for extending your hearing aids’ charge. For instance, some of today’s hearing aid recharging stations are designed to maintain their charge when you unplug them or the power goes out. It might also be a good idea to purchase a second charging station to have on hand for emergencies, or even long weekend trips, to give you double the charging capability. Dr. Johnson says, “We had several patients affected by the Easter weekend tornado, and those who were most successful were the ones who had taken their hearing needs into account and had planned ahead.”


Make time to stay healthy, de-stress and unwind

All of us have heard the benefits of eating a nutritious, well-balanced diet, exercising regularly, and taking steps to de-stress and unwind. These tips for healthy living are especially beneficial when larger issues on the world and local stage lead to a sense of unease. But did you know that taking these health-conscious steps can actually improve your hearing health? Simple workouts, for instance, help keep blood flowing throughout your body, including to your ears. Dr. Johnson noted that “the inner ear is extremely sensitive to blood flow, and a healthy cardiovascular system has a positive effect on hearing. Conversely, inadequate blood flow to the vessels in the inner ear can contribute to hearing loss.” She also mentioned that a healthy diet provides a source of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that are essential for the long-term health of your ears. Along with exercise, good nutrition fuels the high metabolic needs of the inner ear with oxygen and energy. What about stress? For those with conditions like ringing in their ears, also known as tinnitus, stress can greatly intensify the condition. Plus, social distancing is now recommended, but prolonged isolation can lead to anxiety and depression. The American Tinnitus Association offers these tips to de-stress and unwind that can serve all of us well during this time of unease. 1) Curate a soothing soundscape, using such tools as apps or music streaming services that can be tailored to your preferences, table-top sound generators, and pillows with speakers. 2) Meditate to focus your awareness to help the mind and body relax. Utilize apps that offer short, guided meditations that will bring awareness to breathing, thinking, and calming the mind. 3) Learn how to master relaxing breathing. This is a tool that takes time to cultivate so begin practicing today. Follow these steps: Exhale completely through your mouth, then seal your lips. Inhale through your nose to a mental count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven. Exhale through your mouth to a count of eight. Inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times.


Stay connected with the people in your life

With today’s technology, staying connected with the people in your life has never been easier, more accessible, or affordable. Video calls are preferable to audio-only calls because they allow those with hearing loss to see the speaker’s lips moving, which often aids in speech understanding. Plan to speak to a family member or friend each day by video chat to stay connected, upbuilt and engaged. For those working from home, video conferencing can allow a virtual face-to-face meeting for project collaboration and document sharing. Many of these video conferencing services—like FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Zoom, and Skype—are available at no cost. “Johnson Audiology hosted an Ask Our Audiologists online seminar recently utilizing Zoom, and patients had the opportunity to gather vital information about hearing health and pose questions directly to our audiologists. We will offer these opportunities throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond,” Dr. Johnson said. Also, explore options that your medical professionals offer for telehealth using video conferencing options like those previously mentioned. “We encourage our patients to contact us to inquire about telehealth appointments.” If video conferencing just is not your cup of tea, talk with your audiologist about a caption call phone, which you can receive at no cost. “Johnson Audiology works with several of the national caption call phone companies. We can get you set up with an appointment for installation of a caption call phone, and the companies offer excellent in-home training and 24-hour support,” Dr. Johnson stated.


Events unfolding globally and locally are making life more challenging for everyone, but you can and should still prioritize your hearing health. With flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to try new communication technology and life techniques, you easily can stay in touch with your audiologist and successfully maintain your hearing health.

Cochlear implantation: A game changer for Chattanooga native, Chipper Gocke

March 6, 2025
Chipper Gocke, 28, has had many poignant moments in the last six weeks since his cochlear implant surgery. “A workmate commented recently that my speaking voice is the appropriate volume now. Not being able to hear myself, I probably often talked too loud before. It seems like a small thing, but it is a way to be more normalized in my professional and other settings.” His mother, Amy Gocke, also has noticed the changes. “Chipper has never called me on the phone before. With his profound lifelong hearing loss and even using powerful hearing aids, he simply couldn’t communicate by phone. Now I look forward to his calls every day after he gets off work.” These daily experiences that people often take for granted—communicating with a workmate or calling a family member to say hello—are now possible for Chipper because of his cochlear implant. Hearing loss has been a part of Chipper’s life since he was a small child. Chipper’s father, Ted Gocke, relates, “From the time he was 18 months old, Chipper had ear infections that had us in and out of the hospital. That led to tubes in his ears and the diagnosis that he had a significant hearing loss.” As a youngster, Chipper received early intervention services before he even reached school age. He also got established with local audiologist, Darnell Scafe, and they reconnected recently when Chipper sought out Darnell for hearing health care services as an adult. Darnell, who joined the Johnson Audiology team in 2018, says, “I remember Chipper as a sweet little boy who didn’t let his hearing loss slow him down. It’s wonderful to get to know the fine, capable young man he has grown into.” Last year, Darnell encouraged Chipper to consider a cochlear implant, and she referred him to Johnson Audiology’s Cochlear Implant Program Director, Dr. Hannah Dearth. Dr. Dearth then was able to complete cochlear implant candidacy testing. In November of last year, Chipper’s surgery was performed at Murfreesboro Medical Clinic (MMC) in Middle Tennessee by an otolaryngologist (ENT). A native of Chattanooga, Chipper traveled for the initial surgery since there is not currently an ENT in Chattanooga who performs CI surgeries. However, Chipper then had his cochlear implant activated at Johnson Audiology (JA) by Dr. Dearth in early January. Also, there to celebrate activation day was Darnell. “It felt like a full circle moment when Dr. Dearth activated Chipper’s cochlear implant, and he began to have those first sound perceptions.” Dr. Dearth explains, “People often wonder how a hearing aid and a cochlear implant are different. Cochlear implants are designed for patients whose hearing aids are no longer assisting them in understanding in both quiet and noisy environments. A hearing aid is designed to provide amplification for speech sounds that are unintelligible without said amplification. Cochlear implants are a surgical option for those who are no longer able to achieve meaningful understanding with a traditional hearing aid. Hearing aids rely on the ear’s natural pathway for hearing to accomplish this and so may not work well for someone with severe damage to the inner ear. A cochlear implant, on the other hand, bypasses the damaged parts of the ear by stimulating the auditory nerve directly with a mild electrical current that sends the sound signal to the brain.” Chipper is committed to his own success with his cochlear implant and in addition to listening to the speech of those around him, he is also tuning in to podcasts and audiobooks that give him even more speech exposure. Dr. Dearth says that is a huge factor in any patient’s ability to thrive with the device. “The patients who are committed to the aural rehabilitation as prescribed experience faster progress and higher success rates long term.” Chipper will continue regular follow-up appointments for the rest of his life to maintain successful progress with his CI. He gets emotional talking about the social isolation that can be a common side effect of profound hearing loss and, also, mentions the spatial awareness that better hearing offers. “Being able to pinpoint sound and localize stimuli from both sides of the head has positive effects for living a safe life,” Dr. Dearth says. Dr. Megan Johnson, audiologist, founder, and owner of JA, says, “Johnson Audiology has provided support for cochlear implant patients since 2017 with care offered through the practice’s location on Lee Highway in the East Brainerd area. After implantation, every other part of a CI patient’s hearing journey can be accomplished at Johnson Audiology—from initial activation to routine mapping.”  Chipper and his parents encourage people to explore the possibility of cochlear implants since it can make such a difference in a person’s daily life and function. Johnson Audiology is accepting new patients who currently wear hearing aids but would like to pursue cochlear implant candidacy as well as those who already have a cochlear implant. Call Johnson Audiology at 423.556.7185 or visit www.johnsonaudiology.com/schedule for more information or to schedule an appointment.

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!”
Share by: