How to deal with unilateral deafness

  For unilateral deafness in adults, the steps in my approach are: 1) fully understand the patient’s occupational, economic, psychological, and family situation, and if the clinic can only give him/her ten minutes, make an appointment for a later time; 2) fully understand the characteristics of the latest unilateral deafness intervention techniques myself and make recommendations for selection from the patient’s point of view; 3) for intervention: a. High-power CIC on the affected side is preferred for men, transmitting sound through the bone guide to the affected side. The success rate is less than one third. If unsuccessful, ITC CROS is chosen. b. For adult females (hairstyle can mask the hearing aid), Open-fit mini CROS BTE is preferred. in rare cases, implantable BAHA/Ponto/bone bridge is chosen. A few patients who are unilaterally deaf have used CROS hearing aids and tested the Weber tuning fork test with their eyes closed and surprisingly felt sound on the affected side. c. Cochlear implants are recommended for those whose work very much requires binaural hearing, to cost/cosmetic/surgery-effective analysis, especially for adult males (except for those who can adopt artistic hairstyles).