I recently saw a music producer whose ears are her life – and unfortunately she suffered a sudden partial sensori-neural hearing loss in one ear. We were lucky enough to have her seen by an otolaryngologist within hours and after an MRI, steroid injections were started. So far, this is not an unusual situation and course of action although, with a few “favors” cashed in, we were able to get her into the system faster than usual.
The producer, not wanting to leave anything to chance, searched out Dr. Google, and found something that I was not aware of. This was a January 2014 article with the great name “Constraint-induced sound therapy for sudden sensorineural hearing loss –behavioral and neurophysiological outcomes”.
The idea behind the research is to listen to music in the affected ear while plugging the unaffected ear; this supposedly acts synergistically with the steroid injections to facilitate cochlear function recovery.
This was published in a www.Nature.com publication so it was well peered reviewed, but I was surprised that I had never heard of this.
The word “Constraint” in the title refers to plugging up the unaffected ear (with an earplug) and then music is played at a safe level in the affected ear. The authors of the report claim that this can also be quite useful to re-establish normal cortical auditory maps; something that can be permanently altered despite resolution of the peripheral pure tone sensori-neural hearing loss.
The authors provide several possible explanations for how this works. They point out that “sound stimulation dilates blood vessels and increases red blood cell velocity in the cochlea”. This, they argue, could improve the micro-circulation of blood (and oxygen) within the cochlea. Since oxygen deprivation is a major cause of cochlear hair cell death, this improved blood circulation may have helped to resolve this hypoxic situation. The authors also point out that even if there was no oxygen deprivation in the damaged cochlea, improved vascular flow brought about by sound stimulation would improve the overall cochlear metabolism and other metabolic benefits by allowing a more optimal removal of toxic substances in the cochlea such as rogue anti-oxidants.
The authors of this study do caution that they still can’t really conclude that the music in the affected ear was, in itself, beneficial or whether the music enhanced the steroidal effect. There is no evidence to date that music in the affected ear can be useful; steroidal use is still the gold standard and music in the affected ear appears to supplement the steroidal effect but it is yet unknown what the mechanism/s is/are.
So – while this is interesting (and something that I had previously not known as a clinical audiologist), it is important to underscore that listening to music in the affected ear is NOT a replacement for steroidal therapy. t appears to supplement the steroidal therapy but the mechanisms are still not understood. Beware of avoiding the otolaryngologist at a time like this. This is not a substitute for medical or steroidal intervention.