Every patient complaining of diminishing sexual prowess fears the medical axiom “if you don't use it, you lose it”. Similarly, orthopaedic patients hobbling around outpatients know that unless they keep their muscles active they may find it hard to regain their lost movements and power once cured.

The attitude of patients suffering from minor degrees of hearing loss tends to be rather different, however. Even if conscious of their loss, most do nothing about it. They would rather wait until they are frankly deaf, it seems. They don't understand that if minor degrees of deafness are neglected in their early stages, and the subtle and complex physiological mechanism of hearing is not regularly exercised, when the time comes that a hearing aid is essential it may not be as effective as it would have been if treatment had been given earlier.

A charitable foundation, Hear the World, as part of its mission to alleviate the problems of deafness that affect 500 million sufferers worldwide, is trying to persuade people to regard a hearing aid as being no more unusual than a pair of spectacles, so that those wearing them won't be stigmatised as being aged and on the way out.

Last week the red carpet was rolled out along the pavements of Unter den Linden in Berlin, ranks of gas-guzzling BMWs and Mercedes filled the curb side and crowds gathered to watch several hundred designer-clad members of the German media, stage and political glitterati congregate in an atmosphere to match that of the Bafta Awards in London. But the purpose here was rather different: the stars had come to view an exhibition of photographs taken by Bryan Adams, the Canadian musician and singer, of stars including Mick Jagger, Amy Winehouse, Annie Lennox and the late Plácido Domingo, who have volunteered to spread the word about hearing loss.

They were also celebrating an award made to the foundation earlier in the year to recognise the contribution it had made to the worldwide understanding of what can be achieved to help people with early hearing loss if modern, technologically advanced aids are used and early diagnosis encouraged.

The event was an opportunity to learn about hearing and deafness in the modern industrial world. Professor Patrick Zorowka, the chairman of the Ear Nose and Throat Clinic of Innsbruck Medical University, informed the audience that one in ten of the world's population suffers from a significant hearing loss. And this is one of the few conditions in which the proportion of the population with a medical problem is greater in noisy industrialised societies, such as Germany and Britain, than it is in the quieter surroundings of the developing world.

In Westernised countries, one in three people over 65 has impaired hearing, and while there have been steady improvements in the early detection of hearing loss, there is still some way to go. At least one in five - probably more - patients who has a hearing loss is either unaware of it, or will not wear a hearing aid because of the stigma associated with it.

The effects of diminished hearing that wouldn't usually be classified as deafness, or even by most people as hard of hearing, are enough to lessen the everyday pleasures of life. This is not only because of the obvious inability to appreciate subtleties of music, birdsong, the sounds of the countryside or the chatter of children, but also due to an intellectual handicap caused by words missed in conversations, lectures and on the radio. The first reaction of someone who has had an undetected loss to having a hearing aid fitted is to feel happier and sharper intellectually.

Hearing loss is no longer confined to old people: 18 per cent of young people in Europe now show some signs of it, probably because 85 per cent of those who have this difficulty have regularly attended nightclubs and have worn iPods. The ears of regular clubbers are rarely given a rest. During the day they are assaulted by the hammering and hissing noises of industry, the sound of planes, traffic and restaurants. At night the overworked and overloaded hearing senses are subjected to the constant din of the dance floor and bar, only tolerable because noise is not noticed when other enjoyable activities are taking place. If the centres of pleasure in the brain are stimulated, the irritation of noise is forgotten.

A modern nightclub or restaurant is likely to have a background noise of around 90 decibels; on the dance floor this may rise to more than 110, and at a rock concert it can be even more. Noise levels on an airport runway will rise to 130 decibels, and a road junction in a city may have levels of more than 100 decibels. These constant assaults on our ears have the potential to damage our hearing.

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