image credit: Jonas BergstenNot age is the leading cause of hearing loss, but noise. Unless you take steps now to protect your ears, sooner or later many of you - and your children - will have difficulty understanding even ordinary speech. Many people, including 12% to 15% of school-age children, already have permanent hearing loss caused by the everyday noise that we take for granted as a fact of life.
While there are myriad regulations to protect people who work in noisy environments, there are relatively few governing repeated exposure to noise outside the workplace, from portable music devices, rock concerts, hair dryers, sirens, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, vacuum cleaners, car alarms and countless other sources.
