Hearing loss rarely happens all at once.

The television volume creeps a little louder. Conversations in busy restaurants become harder to follow. A grandchild’s laugh isn’t quite as clear as it once was.

Little by little, people begin adapting to what they think is just another part of getting older or a new normal, often without realizing how much they’ve been missing.

For Dr. Rebecca Brashears, owner and audiologist at Ascent Audiology and Hearing, those seemingly small moments are anything but insignificant. They represent opportunities to restore confidence, strengthen relationships, and reconnect people with the sounds that make life meaningful.

“My goal is to improve quality of life through better hearing,” Dr. Brashears said. “We’re going to improve communication with their family, and they’re going to start going to activities again that they might have stopped because they couldn’t hear.”

Since opening Ascent Audiology and Hearing in January 2017, Dr. Brashears has built her private practice around the simple philosophy that every patient deserves personalized care and enough time to feel heard before they can hear better.

Rooted in experience, Dr. Brashears understands hearing loss firsthand.

Dr. Brashears wears a hearing aid herself after experiencing hearing loss in her right ear following multiple surgeries as a child. That personal experience, she said, ultimately inspired her career.

“When I went to college, I decided I wanted to study what was behind hearing loss and how you can help with it,” she said. “My personal experience got me here.”

Today, that perspective allows her to reassure patients in ways few providers can.

Dr. Brashears said many people worry about how hearing aids will look or what they’ll feel like to wear. In these moments, Dr. Brashears often points to her own.

“You probably didn’t even notice my hearing aid,” she often tells patients.

That shared experience helps ease anxieties and creates an immediate sense of trust.

Before opening her own practice, Dr. Brashears spent nearly 20 years in a variety of clinical settings, including private practice, an ear, nose and throat physician’s office, and the University of South Carolina Speech and Hearing Center.

At her current practice, Dr. Brashears said she values the quality time she spends with patients. 

“I can spend as much time as I want with them,” she said. “It’s a long-term relationship. I’m not just fitting them with hearing aids; they’re going to be coming back for many years.”

Her care often extends beyond the walls of her practice as well. Dr. Brashears said she regularly visits local retirement communities to clean hearing aids and provide ear care and performs disability hearing evaluations for veterans from across the region.

Many of her patients now travel hours to receive care at Ascent Audiology and Hearing, a testament to the reputation she has built through compassionate service and patient education.

“It touches my heart,” Dr. Brashears said. “They’re willing to travel that far just to work with me and my private practice.”

Education has also become a cornerstone of her work, she said. Through regular television appearances, Dr. Brashears helps viewers recognize the often-overlooked signs of hearing loss before it begins affecting their daily lives.

“Hearing loss is gradual,” Dr. Brashears explained. “By the time patients see me, they’ve often had that hearing loss for many years.”

Modern hearing technology continues to improve, making those conversations easier than ever before, she said. Today’s hearing aids offer rechargeable batteries that can last more than two days on a single charge, waterproof designs, fall detection and sophisticated processing that helps users understand speech more clearly, even in noisy environments.

Still, Dr. Brashears said she believes the greatest transformation isn’t found in the technology itself, but rather in watching patients rediscover sounds they had forgotten existed.

“They're thrilled they’re able to hear this and that again,” she said. “That’s really the big thing.”

As Ascent Audiology & Hearing approaches its tenth anniversary in January 2027, Dr. Brashears said she remains committed to the same mission that inspired her from the very beginning: helping people reconnect with the people and moments that matter most.

For her, better hearing has never been just about sound. It’s about improving quality of life, one conversation at a time.

To learn more about Ascent Audiology and Hearing, visit https://ascentaudiologywv.com/ or call (304) 948-5565. Check out the full photo gallery from Ascent Audiology here.