Profound unilateral hearing loss is a specific type of hearing impairment when one ear has no functional hearing ability (91dB or greater hearing loss). People with profound unilateral hearing loss can only hear in monaural (mono).
Profound unilateral hearing loss or single-sided deafness, SSD, makes hearing in background noise difficult. With speech and background noise presented at the same level, persons with unilateral deafness were found to hear only about 30-35% of the conversation. A person with SSD needs to make more effort when communicating with others. When a patient is able to hear from only one ear, and there are limited possibilities to compensate for the handicap, e.g., changing listening position, group discussions and dynamic listening situations become difficult.
SSD also negatively affects hearing by making it more difficult for the patient to determine the direction, distance and movement of sound sources. In an evaluation using the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) questionnaire9, SSD patients actually perceived a greater handicap than subjects with a hearing loss in both ears.
SSD is known to cause:
- Irritability
- Frequent headaches, stress
- Social isolation
- Appearance of anxiousness even in low noise situations
- Jumpiness
- Trouble figuring out where sounds are coming from.
- Variable light dizziness
- Trouble paying attention to what people are saying: "evasive" behaviour.
- Misdiagnoses as ADHD
- Seeming lack of awareness of other peoples personal space and moods
- Lack of sound depth: any background noise (in the room, in the car) is flat and wrongly interpreted by the brain. The effect is similar to what happens when trying to hear someone speaking in a noisy crowd on a mono TV. The effect is also similar to talking on the phone to someone who is in a noisy environment (see also: King-Kopetzky syndrome)
- Inability to filter out background noise or selectively listen to only the important portion of the noise in the environment.
- For sensorineural hearing loss, the lack of input coming from the damaged sensory apparatus can cause "ghost beeps" or ringing/tinnitus as the brain attempts to interpret the now missing sensory data. The frequency and the volume of the noise can increase according to one's physical condition (stress, fatigue, etc.). This can aggravate social problems and increase the difficulty of speech comprehension.
Read more about this topic: Unilateral Hearing Loss
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