Blog

Cochlear implants can help people with severe or severe deafness to better communicate with others through hearing, so that they can get more education and employment opportunities, so that they can return to the mainstream society. Although cochlear implants bring new hope to patients with severe and severe deafness, it does not mean that all patients can be implanted with cochlear implants, and that the cochlear implants must have a correct understanding and appropriate expectations.

1) Limitations of cochlear implants

We must know that the cochlear implant brings joy to life to many deaf people, but also to understand its limitations:

First, the implanted cochlear implant cannot repair the damaged hearing system. Damaged acoustic nerve fibers are currently not medically repairable or replaceable. If only a small amount of auditory nerve fibers remain, it will not be able to pass enough information to the brain to understand complex sounds like language. Secondly, although the cochlear implant is helpful to the deaf, it is not perfect, and it is far from the normal human hearing ability. It must be fully understood. Therefore, when deaf patients consider implanting a cochlear implant, they must first determine whether they are qualified candidates for implantation of a cochlear implant.

Not all patients with extremely severe paralysis or patients with ineffective hearing aids are suitable for implantation of cochlear implants. The factors affecting the implantation effect are: the length of deafness, the age of deafness, the cause of deafness, the condition of nerve fibers in the inner ear, The imaging of the inner ear and so on. In addition, many factors such as the patient’s desire to regain hearing and the support of family financial resources may affect the implantation effect of the cochlear implant.

2) Standard for cochlear implants

ImplantCochlear implantThere are the same and different selection criteria for adults and children.

The same standard is: the degree of deafness of the ears is severe or very severe sensorineural hearing loss; hearing aids and other devices can not improve the hearing situation; patients have a strong desire to improve hearing and better psychological quality; support from family, friends And correct understanding of the cochlear implant and appropriate expectations; no surgical contraindications.

Different selection criteria are: adults must be post-linguistic patients and drumsticks are positive for electrical stimulation, but there is no clear age limit. Young people, middle-aged people and the elderly, as long as they are linguistically and meet the requirements of surgical anesthesia, can Implantation; for pediatric patients, the minimum age is 12 months (FDA passed) to perform the operation. In some special cases, the age of implantation can be several months earlier. Patients with prelingual sputum have better results before 8, especially when 4 is older. If preoperative patients can wear 3-6 hearing aids and perform hearing rehabilitation, they will improve their postoperative speech ability. Great help.

3) Risk of cochlear implants

There must be a complete set of hearing rehabilitation education programs for implanting cochlear implants, and parents need financial resources and material resources. In addition, children should also exclude some diseases that are not suitable for surgery, such as incomplete or absent bilateral auditory nerves, nerve damage caused by auditory nerve block, markedly low intelligence, and the risk of implantation exceeding the income.

There are also some factors that affect patient choice. Patients with degenerative neurological diseases and cerebrovascular disease should not be implanted with cochlear implants. There are also risks associated with cochlear implant surgery, such as facial paralysis. In short, the implantation of cochlear implants also has requirements and selection criteria for patients. Do not think that patients with extremely severe deafness and hearing aids can choose cochlear implants.

So far, people have not been able to predict exactly how well they will be implanted after cochlear implants. Because there are many factors affecting the effect of cochlear implants, it is a long and slow process for some people, and for others, it takes only a few weeks to achieve good results, such as sudden loss of hearing due to lesions. The cochlear implant is implanted in a short period of time.

Jinghao medical hearing aid reminder: hearing aids need to be professionally “fitted”, it is very important to choose a professional hearing aid fitting center and hearing aid fittings! All patients and friends have any hearing problems can call the Jinghao medical consultation, or personally Come to the fitting center experience. Hearing aid free consultation phone: +86-18566295705

You can also scan our WeChat public account for more information about hearing.