Unilateral hearing loss

Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) is a type of hearing impairment where there is normal hearing in one ear and impaired hearing in the other ear. Patients with unilateral hearing loss have difficulty: Hearing conversation on their impaired side Localizing sound Understanding speech in the presence of background noise In interpersonal interaction in social settings Focusing on individual sound sources in large, open environments Heavy impairment of the auditory Figure–ground perception In quiet conditions, speech discrimination is no worse than normal hearing in those with partial deafness; however, in noisy environments speech discrimination is almost always severe. The prevalence is 3–8.3% of the population. Individuals who are diagnosed with Single Sided Deafness have difficulties with sound localization and speech in noise discrimination. Children with SSD are more likely to experience developmental delays- school, speech, behavioral problems. Known causes include genetics, maternal illness and injury. Examples of these causes are physical trauma, acoustic neuroma, maternal prenatal illness such as measles, labyrinthitis, microtia, meningitis, Ménière's disease, Waardenburg syndrome, mumps (epidemic parotitis),mastoiditis or due to a overstrained nervus vestibulocochlearis after a brain surgery to close to the nerve. SSD's most severe form of unilateral hearing loss is caused by: sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), acoustic neuroma, anomalies inner ear abnormalities, cochlear nerve deficiency (CND), mumps, congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, meningitis and auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) treatment is based on the cause of the hearing loss. Limited treatment when the cause is the Central auditory system or Auditory nerve. A 1998 study of schoolchildren found that per thousand, 6–12 had some form of unilateral hearing loss and 0–5 had moderate to profound unilateral hearing loss. It was estimated that in 1998 some 391,000 school-aged children in the United States had unilateral hearing loss.