The Johnson Audiology Hearing Foundation
January 3, 2022

In October 2019, Johnson Audiology launched the Johnson Audiology Hearing Foundation (JAHF), an official 501c3, non-profit organization for the purpose of helping those in financial need receive the gift of hearing. Since then, dear patients and others in the community have donated more than 200 hearing aids and hearing aid accessories to the cause.


“We have been so touched by people’s spirit of giving in the two years since JAHF was founded. Because of people’s donations of gently used hearing aids as well as monetary gifts, many people in the communities we serve have been fitted with hearing technology. The gift of hearing can be a gamechanger for people,” said Dr. Megan Johnson, an audiologist and owner of Johnson Audiology.


Seth Robinette agrees. His application to JAHF was reviewed and accepted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020. Mr. Robinette had been struggling with hearing loss, and it was impacting various aspects of his life, including his job. After coming to Johnson Audiology and receiving hearing aids by way of the Foundation, he said, “I feel like my ears have a new home, and it’s Johnson Audiology. This place turned my unfortunate hearing loss from a negative in my life to a great and wonderful experience. With my hearing aids, I feel like I’ve stepped out into a brave new world with ears to hear the things I have been missing in life, which in turn, re-establishes my confidence to
take on the world.”

Life-changing stories like this from JAHF recipients are exactly the impacts Dr. Johnson and her team had hoped for when the Foundation was started. Dr. Johnson says, “Hearing is one of the most important of human senses and should never be underestimated or dismissed. It empowers a person to live life without limitations. It connects people to those around them, allowing better communication and socialization with friends and family, greater opportunities in your career, even heightened physical safety as our sense of hearing is one of our body’s most potent warning systems to protect us from danger. Healthy hearing links us to the world in a way that none of our other senses achieve.”


Dr. Whitney Smith, an audiologist in Johnson Audiology’s Chattanooga office and a Foundation officer, explained that JAHF’s mission is straightforward—to pair those who cannot afford hearing technology with hearing aids and services. She also said, “We put a lot of thought into our vision statement because we wanted it to reflect how strongly we feel about healthy hearing being a basic human right that everyone should be able to harness.” The Foundation's vision statement sums up its goal: The Johnson Audiology Hearing Foundation recognizes that healthy hearing harnesses a person’s ability to be an active participant in life rather than an isolated bystander. The Foundation also purports that communication is a basic human right. Thus, the Foundation’s vision is to make quality hearing health care and technology available and accessible to those with financial need who are struggling with hearing loss. This will be accomplished by mobilizing the power, expertise and passion of hearing health care professionals, volunteers and donors. 


Jan Hollingsworth, JAHF’s Donation Coordinator, said, “The Foundation accepts gently-used hearing aids and accessories, as well as monetary gifts from gracious donors.” JAHF also works with several of the major hearing aid manufacturers as they either refurbish the donated aids we receive or donate to JAHF by way of slightly older model aids they have in stock. 


Dr. Johnson added, “Our audiologists are committed to the Foundation, and their volunteerism speaks to the passion they bring to their profession. They truly want to help people hear better.”


Dr. Smith said she has seen firsthand what donations can mean to everyone involved. “I’ve dedicated my life to helping people hear. I couldn’t have chosen a more fulfilling profession. It’s incredibly rewarding watching a person’s face light up when I fit them with hearing aids and sound becomes a part of life again. Offering that experience to someone who thought hearing aids were financially out of reach—it doesn’t get any better than that!” She said, “It is so gratifying for donors, also. There’s no better feeling than to help someone in need with a gift that makes an immediate and lasting impact on their lives. It’s a win-win!” In fact, Dr. Smith has requested that her own family members make donations to the Foundation in lieu of Christmas and birthday gifts to her. Dr. Smith said that just like with any charitable gift, a donation to JAHF can be used as a tax deduction. “We mail acknowledgement letters for both monetary gifts and technology donations with a dollar value assigned to the gift based on the brand, style, and age of the hearing aid. The letter can be used as a receipt for tax purposes.”


Mrs. Hollingsworth said, “We’ve received hundreds of pieces of donated technology since the Foundation’s inception in October 2019. Many are gently used devices without too much wear and tear from the previous owner, and those are what we use to place on Foundation recipients.” Some donations, however, are devices that were custom-fit to the original owner. “We also get devices that are quite old. Neither of these scenarios are appropriate for placement on someone else,” said Dr. Johnson. In those cases, JAHF seeks to send the devices to organizations that dismantle them into components and parts that can be recycled or reused.


Dr. Johnson said, “Many patients choose to move into new technology and have donated their older aids to the Foundation rather than the aids taking up space in a drawer at home. It’s a way of giving your aids a second life.” Additionally, aids have been donated by family members after a loved one has died.


Dr. Johnson also said that if a person is ineligible for help through JAHF, Johnson Audiology will seek to work with them in other ways. “We have many avenues for helping a person get the hearing technology they need. For instance, Johnson Audiology verifies every patient’s health insurance benefits. Some policies have programs for hearing aid technology. Also, a great organization—the Georgia Lions Lighthouse Foundation—is an opportunity for residents of Georgia who are in need of assistance with hearing care. For years, Johnson Audiology has partnered with the Lighthouse Foundation to get people into the hearing technology they need.”


The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 466 million people worldwide are affected by disabling hearing loss and that number will soar to more than 900 million by 2050. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified hearing loss as the third most common chronic physical condition confronting Americans today. Dr. Johnson said, “Clearly, organizations that make hearing technology available for people will be an ongoing need as we move into the future. A gift to the Johnson Audiology Hearing Foundation is a way we can all do our part.”


Make a contribution or apply for assistance to the Johnson Audiology Hearing Foundation.

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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