patient audiology COVID-19

Listen up! Is it time for a hearing test?

There are currently around 11 million people in the UK living with hearing loss.

By 2035, it’s estimated this will have risen to around 15.6 million people – that’s one in five of us.

In the majority of cases, hearing loss is gradual, and this can make it difficult to know when you need to get a check-up. Unlike other health conditions, a hearing test can often fall to the bottom of our ‘To Do’ lists!

In fact, the charity Action on Hearing Loss reports evidence suggesting that people wait on average 10 years before seeking help for their hearing loss. What’s more, untreated hearing loss can contribute to social isolation, depression and increase your chance of developing dementia.

Getting your hearing checked is one of the simplest things you can do. Some questions to consider if you think you might be having hearing problems are:

  • Do you struggle to understand speech when you are communicating as part of a group?
  • Do you ask people to repeat themselves?
  • Do you think that people mumble?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions, then we can help!

Our comprehensive audiological evaluation enables us to understand your hearing loss and whether a problem requires medical or surgical intervention. Our team are experts in complex and challenging hearing loss cases, and we also conduct a personal needs assessment to ensure any recommendations are tailored to suit your hearing loss and lifestyle requirements.

If you need a hearing aid, our fitting appointments include Real Ear Measurements (REMs) during which an audiologist monitors the hearing aids while you wear them to ensure the accuracy of the device’s amplification prescription.

And it’s important to remember follow up appointments. We always recommend people see us for annual reviews – this allows our clinicians the opportunity to assess your current hearing loss profile for comparison with what was recorded at your original assessment.

From here we can understand how effective your intervention has been and whether any modification to your prescription may be appropriate. We can check for any changes in your hearing sensitivity and speech discrimination and ensure that your devices are providing the correct level of amplification to speech so that your speech discrimination ability is maximised.

Finally, we can take the opportunity to thoroughly service and clean your systems so that the functionality of the devices is as good as possible.

To get in touch for an initial assessment or to book in for a follow up appointment, give us a call on 0800 030 6617 or book online here.

For further information, call The Tinnitus Clinic on 0800 030 6617 or e-mail info@thetinnitusclinic.co.uk