Hearing loss commonly affects both ears. However, some people do experience hearing loss in just one ear. This is known as unilateral hearing loss.
What Causes Unilateral Hearing Loss?
There are many possible causes of unilateral hearing loss. Some include:
- Certain infections
- Ménière’s disease
- Damage to the ear
- Head trauma
- Acoustic neuroma
- Genetic disorders
The Challenges of Hearing Loss in One Ear
The ability to use both our ears to hear gives our brain the ability to:
- Locate sound
- Improves sound quality
- Gives us a wider hearing range
If you partially or fully lose the ability to hear in one ear, it can cause a variety of different problems, including:
- Difficulty hearing in loud environments, like when out with friends at a [city] restaurant.
- Trouble gauging the volume of a particular sound or where it is coming from.
- Struggling to understand speech because sound must travel around your head from your impaired ear to the functional ear. This is known as the “head shadow” effect.
- Mental fatigue. Unilateral hearing loss increases the cognitive load placed on your brain. Because you have to work harder to hear, it may be more difficult for you to focus on conversations for extended periods of time.
Treatment Options for Unilateral Hearing Loss
Treatment options for unilateral hearing loss will depend on its severity. If your hearing loss is mild to moderate, amplification from hearing aids in one ear may be all that you need to improve your hearing.
For more severe or profound hearing loss, treatment may include:
- CROS or BiCROS hearing aids
- Bone-anchored hearing systems
- Cochlear implants
There is no one right answer when determining the best treatment option for unilateral hearing loss. Research is ongoing on hearing outcomes and quality of life when comparing treatment with cochlear implants, bone conduction devices and CROS.
None of these treatments can fully restore your hearing back to normal. However, they can improve your ability to process sounds and speech. Your audiologist will work with you to determine the severity of your hearing loss and find what solutions best meet your individual needs.