Your hearing can get worse as you age. Here's how to protect it

For most people, your hearing gradually deteriorates with age, and about half of the time it's caused by genetics that are out of your control.

- Katie Mogg

But years of regularly attending room-rumbling concerts, for instance, can exacerbate hearing loss, and you might find yourself straining to hear movies or struggling to follow group conversations.

"When we're young, we think nothing can ever threaten us," said Dr Howard W. Francis, a professor of otolaryngology at the Duke University School of Medicine. But 55 percent of US adults have disabling hearing loss when they're 75 and older. And if hearing loss goes untreated, it can raise your risk of developing conditions like dementia and depression. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to protect your ears. Here's what experts suggest you do — and what you should avoid:

Do: Be mindful of loud sounds

Other than ageing, exposure to loud noises is the most common cause of hearing loss. And the longer you're exposed, the more likely it is that your hearing will be damaged, said Dr Dunia Abdul-Aziz, a board-certified otolaryngologist at Harvard Medical School. Hearing an extremely loud sound, such as an explosion, even once can cause permanent hearing damage. But hearing loss is more often the result of "cumulative exposure that you'll notice later on in life," Dr Abdul-Aziz added.

Concerts are an obvious culprit, but you can also lose hearing after years of watching fireworks, operating loud machinery, attending music-blasting exercise classes or using your headphones at full volume.