Don't Let Hearing Loss Lose You

Helen Keller said, “Blindness separates us from things, but deafness separates us from people.” Hearing is so much more than just detecting sounds; it’s hearing your grandchildren laugh, enjoying a dinner out with friends, and listening to the echoes as you move about your space. When that sense of hearing begins to degrade, it can be a profound loss for the individual affected as they begin to separate and lose connections with family, friends, and the world around them. The Bartlett family has been helping the community hear better and recapture those connections for 50 years at Bartlett’s Hearing Aid Center.

Joe Bartlett continues the legacy of bringing better hearing to Northern California as the family’s third generation. His great aunt, Donna Jensen, “confident and surrogate matriarch,” was the instigator of the idea. In the 1960s, she began selling hearing aids through door-to-door sales in the greater Sacramento area. He says that her gregarious personality and belief that “whatever she's doing is the absolute best thing anybody should be doing” enabled her to convince Jack and Jean Bartlett, Joe’s grandparents, to join in the endeavor. The Bartlett’s had opened up and run a feed store in the area, so they were well-versed in what was required to start and succeed in business. Joe says, “I think they saw a community in need.” That, along with their existing entrepreneurial spirit, prompted them to go ahead and give it a try. They opened their first two locations in Oroville and Citrus Heights in 1973. Donna continued to remain involved with the business until her passing in 2019.

The Bartlett’s eldest son, Terry, took over the business in the early 1990s and subsequently hired his son, Joe, in 2002. Joe’s path to the business was not as direct as his grandparents but his dedication and passion couldn’t be more clear. He says he’s always been a “computer techie guy, even as a little kid.” He went to college with the idea of getting into either computer science or computer engineering but says, “I loved all the science, but I wasn’t passionate enough about it to really apply myself.” So, at the age of 21, Joe moved on and did door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales for a year. During that time, he learned he had the same interest in entrepreneurship as his grandparents, and he began determining a way he could work for himself. He approached his father and shared that he wasn’t sure where he was headed but needed a place to work while he found it. He started working at the office in April and by that fall he had already completed all his training licensing requirements. He says he applied all his computer training from college to tuning and programming the various devices they carried. Joe attended every manufacturer training seminar and learned all he could about the products. He says, “What I found, as I was training, was that I really understood what I had learned in college about computers, the science of acoustics, and how it all really works. I felt like the presenters were talking directly to me, and I knew exactly how I could apply it to hearing aids. I found my calling, and it fit exactly into who I am and what I do.” A year later, he earned his dispensing license, and in 2007, Joe passed the requirements to receive his BC-HIS title from the National Board for Certification in Hearing Instrument Sciences. Three years later, he purchased the Oroville and Chico facilities from his father and has since opened three more offices in Paradise, Red Bluff, and Redding.

Hearing aids have changed and advanced so much since the Bartletts first became involved. In the 1970s they were bulky, over the ear, and all analog. A hearing aid takes sound waves and converts them into electrical signals. These signals are then amplified according to the user's needs. However, in analog hearing aids, all sounds are amplified at the same level, much like turning up the volume on a speaker. Very often these hearing aids would begin to make a loud squealing noise before they could produce a clear signal to the wearer. The advent of digital hearing aids in the late 1990s changed the face of the industry. Digital aids use an advanced computer chip to convert sound waves into digital signals. These signals can then be processed in different ways: voices can be amplified and sharpened, background noise volume can be decreased, and incoming noise levels are interpreted and adjusted accordingly. Bartlett’s carries Starkey brand hearing aids and has since Joe’s grandparents were working. Within the brand, there are several different types of devices including IIC or invisible hearing aids, ITC or in-the-canal aids, ITE or in-the-ear aids, RIC or receiverin-the-canal and BTE or behind-the-ear aids. Each type has pros and cons for individual users. Within these types, there are four or five technology levels, so needless to say the choices are innumerable, and having a caring, qualified hearing aid professional is crucial in determining which device is best suited to your needs.

Hearing loss can affect so much more than just an individual’s ability to hear; it’s important for brain function and overall well-being. Untreated hearing loss has been shown to be associated with an increased risk for dementia and depression as individuals withdraw from the world because they can’t understand what’s being said. They often become confused, then embarrassed, and find it’s easier to remain alone rather than try and navigate social situations with their limited hearing. This isolation can result in significant declines in cognitive functions as their interactions with the world become less and less frequent. Increased incidence of falls and balance issues can also be attributed to hearing loss. Joe explains, “The ears hear sounds bouncing off of the walls and structures around you, and people don’t realize when you lose your hearing, you lose this sense of echolocation. The first thing a lot of people hear when I turn on their hearing aids are the echoes bouncing off the walls. That’s one of the first sounds that people lose, that high frequency, those tiny little ticks and clicks” that help focus our location in space.

Joe stresses the importance of maintaining follow-up appointments after that first fitting. The new digital hearing aids have so many additional applications including fall detection with texts sent to a loved one, fitness tracking, and usage analysis. He says that the data from the aids is a great counseling tool. “The hearing aid logs information about how it’s been acting and working.” It keeps track of usage time, records information about the noise the person is exposed to, and then how it’s adjusting to that. “I find a lot of what I do is teach and counsel after we get people hearing better. Nothing’s perfect, but it’s so much better. The more they put in the time and the more they attend their follow-ups, the more they learn.” People come into the office with an enormous level of stress and anxiety, and Joe and his staff are able to give them back their sense of self. He shares, “We cry all the time. When they’re leaving without that stress, you see you’ve really changed their life.”

If you or your loved one is concerned about possible hearing loss, contact the Bartlett family today to set up a hearing evaluation. They have four locations to serve you in Chico, Oroville, Red Bluff, and Redding. Bartlett’s Hearing Aid Center’s website has all the information you need to remain connected to the people around you. Visit them online at www.Bartletthearing.com.

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