LM317 - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Single-Sided Deafness?

Single-sided deafness (SSD) poses unique challenges to both the patient and the managing audiologist. SSD negatively impacts the ability to localize sound as well as speech understanding, especially in the presence of background noise. Clinical recommendations may be inconsistent as there is not a definitive best practice for the audiologic management of SSD. SSD patients may pursue a CROS system, a BAHA, or a cochlear implant. Additionally, some SSD patients opt to forgo amplification. This presentation will review patients across the lifespan who pursued each treatment option and experienced varying outcomes.

Summary:

Single Sided Deafness (SSD) affects 0.14% of the US population or around 350,00 individuals.  While this is a small portion of the population, these individuals typically seek care from otolaryngology and audiology and our services can provide them with significant improvements in their quality of life.  The deficits associated with SSD continue to be under recognized by other medical professionals and the larger population.  SSD impacts spatial hearing abilities, sound localization and speech understanding in noisy situations. 

These deficits can have a significant impact on quality of life and functional listening ability resulting in issues socially, educationally and professionally.  Our care of these patients is necessary to provide as much success at school and work as possible and equal access in social situations.  We will examine how different treatment options can aid in improving quality of life for patients in a variety of settings. 

There are a wide range of possible treatments and possible outcomes with SSD. This talk will look at a variety of cases across the lifespan from pediatrics to geriatrics as well as variety of treatment options utilized.  We will discuss patients that pursued a CROS system, a BAHA, a CI and monitoring.  We will discuss the new recommendations from ACIA Task Force about CI use for SSD.  Additionally, we will discuss when and why different treatment options are chosen and discuss with the audience why you and a patient may make different choices based off their age, lifestyle, personal preferences, listening needs and degree of difficulty among other things. 

References:

Dillon, M. T., Kocharyan, A., Daher, G. S., Carlson, M. L., Shapiro, W. H., Snapp, H. A., & Firszt, J. B. (2022). American Cochlear Implant Alliance Task Force Guidelines for Clinical Assessment and Management of Adult Cochlear Implantation for Single-Sided Deafness. Ear and hearing, 43(6), 1605–1619. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001260

Hampton, T., Milinis, K., Whitehall, E., & Sharma, S. (2022). Association of Bone Conduction Devices for Single-Sided Sensorineural Deafness With Quality of Life: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA otolaryngology-- head & neck surgery, 148(1), 35–42. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoto.2021.2769

Kay-Rivest, E., Irace, A. L., Golub, J. S., & Svirsky, M. A. (2022). Prevalence of Single-Sided Deafness in the United States. The Laryngoscope, 132(8), 1652–1656. https://doi.org/10.1002/lary.29941

Park, L. R., Griffin, A. M., Sladen, D. P., Neumann, S., & Young, N. M. (2022). American Cochlear Implant Alliance Task Force Guidelines for Clinical Assessment and Management of Cochlear Implantation in Children With Single-Sided Deafness. Ear and hearing, 43(2), 255–267. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000001204

Snapp H. (2019). Nonsurgical Management of Single-Sided Deafness: Contralateral Routing of Signal. Journal of neurological surgery. Part B, Skull base, 80(2), 132–138. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0039-1677687

Snapp, H. A., & Ausili, S. A. (2020). Hearing with One Ear: Consequences and Treatments for Profound Unilateral Hearing Loss. Journal of clinical medicine, 9(4), 1010. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9041010