Cochlear implant
hideA cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear. Unlike hearing aids, the cochlear implant does not amplify sound, but works by directly stimulating any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea with an electric field. External components of the cochlear implant include a microphone, speech processor and an RF transducer or primary headpiece coil. A secondary coil is implanted beneath the skull's skin and inductively coupled to the primary headpiece coil. The headpiece coil has a magnet by which it attaches to another magnet placed on the secondary coil often beside the cochlear implant. The implant relays the incoming signal to the implanted electrodes in the cochlea. The speech processor allows an individual to adjust the sensitivity of the device. The implant gives recipients additional auditory information, which may include sound discrimination fine enough to understand speech in quiet environments. Post-implantation rehabilitative therapy is often critical to ensuring successful outcomes.
As of 2006, approximately 100,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants, with recipients split almost evenly between children and adults. The vast majority are in developed countries due to the high cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy. A small but growing segment of recipients have bilateral implants (one implant in each cochlea).
There is disagreement whether providing cochlear implants to children is ethically justifiable, renewing a century-old debate about models of deafness that often pits hearing parents of deaf children against the Deaf community.
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News tagged with cochlear implants
A sound practice: Cochlear implants restore children's hearing
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Ava Martin seems less nervous than her parents as the three sit in an audiologist’s office at UC Irvine Medical Center a few days after Labor Day. In August, the 6-year-old had surgery to place a cochlear ...
Stimulating sight: New retinal implant developed
Sep 23, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Inspired by the success of cochlear implants that can restore hearing to some deaf people, researchers at MIT are working on a retinal implant that could one day help blind people regain a ...
Nanoelectronic transistor combined with biological machine could lead to better electronics
Aug 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- If manmade devices could be combined with biological machines, laptops and other electronic devices could get a boost in operating efficiency.
Hearing the words beneath the noise
Aug 05, 2009 |
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Hearing aids and cochlear implants act as tiny amplifiers so the deaf and hard-of-hearing can make sense of voices and music. Unfortunately, these devices also amplify background sound, so they're less effective in a noisy ...
Pair of Bionic Ears Helps to Distinguish Left from Right
May 15, 2009 |
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Can a pair of bionic ears benefit a hearing-impaired child? Cynthia Zettler, a postdoctoral fellow in Ruth Litovsky's laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison thinks so.
Wis. could be first to require cochlear implants
Apr 23, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Wisconsin could become the first state requiring private insurance companies to cover cochlear implants for children with severe hearing problems. The state Legislature passed a bill Thursday requiring private health ...
Study shows that cochlear implant surgery is safe for the elderly
Feb 27, 2009 |
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Contrary to conventional medical wisdom, a new study by NYU Langone Medical Center researchers shows that healthy elderly patients with severe to profound hearing loss can undergo a surgical procedure to receive cochlear ...
Good vibrations: Devices aid the deaf by translating sound waves to vibrations
Feb 26, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone.
Cochlear Implants Offer Kids A Gift Beyond Hearing
Feb 18, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- For years, hearing scientists have known that cochlear implants improve the communication of children who receive them. What they didn’t know was whether the children and their parents perceived ...
MRI machines may damage cochlear implants
Dec 01, 2008 |
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Patients with cochlear implants may want to steer clear of certain magnetic imaging devices, such as 3T MRI machines, because the machines can demagnetize the patient's implant, according to new research published in the ...
New tool to assess speech development in infants, toddlers with hearing impairments
Sep 23, 2008 |
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The number of hearing impaired infants and toddlers who are successfully aided by technological devices, such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, continues to grow, but there are still unknowns about these children's speaking ...
