What to do if you think you're starting to suffer from hearing loss

Hearing loss can present itself to people in a number of ways, but the important thing is being able to know the signs and what to do.

Some find that their ability to hear gradually declines over a number of years because of age and general wear and tear while others have to endure a drastic deterioration over a short amount of time.

The first thing to do is to ensure you take our online hearing test just to give you a quick gauge on how bad things are for you, which will then make the whole process of being fitted with a hearing aid much simpler.

Your audiologist will now from the start of your free in-branch hearing tests what level of hearing you currently have and which device would suit you best.

This saves a great deal of time and generally just streamlines the whole process of seeing your hearing recover.

Once you have your hearing aid fitted, it's time to read up and ask questions on how best to cope with it in day-to-day life. You can ask the audiologists all the questions you like and indeed you should too.

Wearing an aid is a lifestyle change and, while the severity of this change may differ from person to person, people still need to know all the tips, tricks and hints to make the transition easier.

It's also important that you don’t think it's the end of the journey once you've started to get used to it.

Wearers of hearing aids should be looking to assess as they go on to see if anything is wrong or could be improved, be it on a week-by-week or month- by-month basis.

Because of ageing, the sad fact is that hearing loss is, to an extent, unavoidable. Indeed, according to Action on Hearing Loss, 70 per cent of those over 70 have some degree of deafness.

However, that's not to say there's nothing that can be done to help improve the situation in the long run.

Ensure you know what to do when faced with the problem and you can save yourself a lot of hassle.