Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 20, 2025
Neuro-rehabilitation Approach for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
Published on: January 25, 2016
The Impact of Unilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss on Quality of Life of Sub-Himalayan Population
Rachit Sood1, Saurabh Varshney2, Kartikesh Gupta3
1Department of ENT, AIIMS, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.
Introduction:
Unilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss (USNHL) is an age-old known entity. Patients with USNHL lack the merits of binaural hearing, i.e., temporal summation, sound localization, and speech recognition in a noisy environment. The lack of binaural hearing affects such individuals' quality of life (QOL). The present study is the most extensive Indian series related to QOL in USNHL patients.
Objectives:
This study aims to assess the impact of USNHL on the QOL of patients in the state of Uttarakhand.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was carried out at a tertiary care center in Uttarakhand over a period of 18 months, from January 2018 to July 2019. A total of 115 patients with pure USNHL were evaluated using a validated questionnaire-Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults-Hindi (HHIA-H).
Results:
In our study, patients with higher HHIA-H scores were male, young adults (age group 18-30 years), students, and laborers. Most of our patients (64%) had significant handicaps, followed by moderate handicaps in 25%. However, no significant correlation of degree of handicap was seen with age, duration, and degree of hearing loss.
Conclusion:
USNHL can lead to a significant handicap that can severely affect the emotional and social aspects of life. Thus, early diagnosis and rehabilitation are essential to prevent handicap and uplift QOL in patients with USNHL. This trial is registered with Clinical Trials Registry of India (CTRI reg. no. CTRI/2018/06/014396).
