Cochlear implants can help severely or severely deaf people 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 they must have a correct understanding and appropriate expectations of cochlear implants.
1）人工耳蜗的局限
We must know that cochlear implants bring joy in life to many deaf people, but also understand its limitations:
First, the implanted cochlear implant cannot repair the damaged hearing system.Damaged auditory nerve fibers cannot be repaired or replaced in medicine.If only a few auditory nerve fibers remain, they will not be able to transmit enough information to the brain to understand complex sounds like language.Secondly, although cochlear implants are helpful to deaf people, they are not perfect, and they are far from reaching the hearing ability of normal people. We must have a full understanding of this.Therefore, when deaf patients consider cochlear implants, they must first determine whether they are qualified candidates for cochlear implants.
Not all patients with severe deafness or those who are ineffective in wearing hearing aids are suitable for cochlear implantation. The factors that affect the effect of the implantation are: the length of the deafness, the age of the deafness, the cause of the deafness, the condition of the inner ear nerve fiber, The imaging of the inner ear and so on.In addition, many factors such as the patient’s desire to regain hearing and family financial support may affect the effect of cochlear implantation.
2）人工耳蜗的标准
植入人工耳蜗，对于成人和儿童有相同和不同的选择标准。
相同的标准是：双耳耳聋程度是重度或极重度感音神经性聋；助听器和其他装置均无法改善听力情况；患者有改善听力的强烈愿望和较好的心理素质；有家庭、朋友的支持和对人工耳蜗的正确认识和适当的期望值；无手术禁忌症等。
不同的选择标准是：成年人必须是语后聋患者且鼓岬电刺激阳性，但无明确年龄限制，青年人、中年人以及老年人，只要是语后聋且符合手术麻醉要求，都可以植入；对于小儿患者，最小者年龄在12个月(美国FDA通过)即可行该项手术，在一些特殊情况下，植入手术的年龄还可以再提早数月。语前聋的患者于8岁前进行手术效果较好，尤其4岁前效果尤佳；若术前患者能佩戴3－6个月 Hearing aid ，并进行听力康复训练，将对术后言语能力的提高有很大帮助。
3）人工耳蜗的风险
To implant a cochlear implant, a complete hearing rehabilitation education plan is required, and parents also need sufficient financial and material resources.In addition, children should exclude some diseases that are not suitable for surgery, such as incomplete or missing bilateral auditory nerves, nerve damage that causes auditory nerve blockade, significantly lower intelligence, and the risk of implantation exceeds the benefit.
In addition, there are some factors that affect the choice of patients. For example, patients with degenerative neurological diseases and cerebrovascular diseases are not suitable for cochlear implantation.Cochlear implant surgery also has certain risks, such as facial paralysis.In short, cochlear implantation also has requirements and selection criteria for patients. Don’t think that patients who are extremely deaf and who wear hearing aids are ineffective can choose cochlear implants.
到目前为止，人们还不能很精确地预测植入人工耳蜗后的效果如何。因为影响人工耳蜗效果的因素很多，对有些人来说是一个漫长而缓慢的过程，而对另外一些人，仅仅需要几周的时间就能取得良好的效果，比如因病变突然丧失听力，在很短的时间内就植入人工耳蜗的
