By Morgan Manella, Special to CNN
Updated 5:29 PM ET, Thu April 7, 2016
(CNN) — Listen closely, concertgoers. Next time you go to a music festival, you might want to pack earplugs. A new study found that they can prevent temporary hearing loss immediately following loud music exposure.
Researchers assigned 51 normal-hearing individuals attending an outdoor music festival in Amsterdam to wear earplugs or not. During a four-and-a-half hour window, 25 wore silicone earplugs and 26 did not. The time-averaged, sound pressure level experienced during the festival was 100 decibels, according to the the study, published Thursday in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.
Participants, who were an average age of 27, took a baseline hearing test before the concert.
After the concert, they were tested again to show whether there was a loss in hearing. Researchers found that the group wearing earplugs had a temporary shift in hearing of 8%, while the group without earplugs had temporary shift of 42%.
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