Turn the volume down, don’t use cotton buds and get your hearing tested before it’s too late. Here’s what experts recommend to keep your ears healthy
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earing loss can make life difficult and lead to social isolation. But with extremely loud devices in our pockets, and earbuds in near-constant use, we are at more risk than ever. How can you take care of your ears to avoid problems?
“People tend to think it’s a bit of fun if someone mishears,” says Kevin Munro, a professor of audiology and director of the Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness at the University of Manchester. From a young age it became apparent that Munro could not hear in his right ear, and in recent years he has experienced hearing loss in his left ear and started wearing a hearing aid – “so I have skin in the game”, he says. “Most of us don’t have hearing loss when we are young, but we all need to understand the importance of being able to communicate well and not have hearing difficulty. I think that could get rid of some of the stigma that is associated with hearing loss.”
Hearing loss affects 42% of people over the age of 50, increasing to 71% of people over 70, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. “For the majority of people, it is a gradual change over their lifetime,” says Munro. “What happens is they’ll get to the stage where they think everyone is mumbling. So they’re blaming everyone else. And then the people they live with say, ‘Why have you got the television so loud? And why am I always having to repeat myself?’ That’s the time to sit up and take notice, because it is affecting all the people you love and spend time with.”
