Two people who consider Emporia their hometown have returned and opened a business dedicated to helping people hear more clearly.
It’s been a month since Bary Williams, doctor of audiology, and Dusty Spaulding, hearing-aid specialist, opened Flint Hills Hearing and Audiology, 3021 Eaglecrest Drive, Suite C. Williams says business has been good.
“With the economy the way it is, we didn’t expect to be as busy as we’ve been,” Williams said.
Williams went to high school in Emporia and got his bachelors degree from Emporia State University. Since then he’s worked all over the country. Spaulding grew up in Council Grove and attended Emporia High School, where he excelled as a wrestler.
Williams specializes in diagnosing hearing problems, and both Williams and Spaulding focus on screenings and the fitting and service of hearing aids. Williams said less than 20 percent of the people in the United States who need hearing aids have them, and rural areas are especially underserved.
“One of the things I’ve noticed in these small towns is that there’s a high percentage of people 55 and older, and nobody’s serving the rural areas,” Williams said.
As part of their push to reach out to small communities, Williams and Spaulding travel with a mobile unit to area towns and offer screenings and hearing aid demonstrations.
“I believe that serving other communities is a necessary and useful thing,” Williams said. The two hope to visit every town in a 60-mile radius within the next four months. “Even the smallest ones,” Williams said. The mobile unit is booked solid through April.
Part of the business of diagnosing and treating hearing disorders is to dispel common misconceptions.
“I think the stereotype is that you have to be ancient and old to wear hearing aids,” Williams said, “and the truth of the matter is we’re seeing legitimate hearing loss in people from their mid-50’s on up. They’re missing out on social situations and they could use some help.”
People also tend to assume hearing aids are for people who can’t hear sounds in general.
“Ninety percent of the people we work with, it’s not that they don’t hear sounds, it’s that they don’t understand speech, and they just need help clarifying. That’s primarily what we focus on,” Williams said.
There is also a stigma attached to hearing aids, but Williams said new technology has revolutionized the devices.
“Most people remember their grandparents wearing hearing aids, and they used to be big, balky, ugly. They’d whistle and they had lots of problems,” Williams said. “But with the advent of the new open-ear technologies, it’s just a whole new ball game in terms of the types of things we can do.”
Williams himself has worn a hearing aid since he was 5 years old, and he described the open-ear hearing aid he now wears.
“Instead of fitting and completely sealing off the ear canal, the idea is to leave the ear open,” he said. The old hearing aids that sealed the ear canal tended to make you feel like you were talking in a barrel, he said, and they were also heavy and uncomfortable.
“They’ve really made some changes, and hearing aids have gotten less expensive and better in quality over the years,” Williams said.
Williams thinks hearing is the most overlooked aspect of health care.
“There’s an old statistic in our business that the average person who gets a hearing aid is about 10 years too late,” he said. “We’ve been around loud music and industrial occupations and that’s what today’s modern hearing aid is suited to do, to clarify that edge we lose when we get a little bit older.”
Williams encourages anyone who suspects a hearing problem to come in for a visit.
“We’re not pushy, we’re small-town guys ourselves,” he said. “If you want to take one for a test drive here at the office or even take one and try it out for a couple of days, come out and try one. Don’t wonder what it’s like. Experience it.”