Cochlear Implants

Were included 82 eyes of 49 patients, 32 (69%) females and 17 (31%) males. The mean patient age was 33 +/- 7.4 years (range: 21 to 48 years). Mean follow up was 4.8 years (range 9 to 1 year). The mean anterior chamber depth was 3.2mm (range 2.8 to 3.67mm). Were implanted 42 Artisan IOL and 40 Artiflex IOL with a mean power of -11.1D

     A cochlear implant is an electronic device that restores hearing for people anywhere from hard of hearing to the profoundly deaf. The cochlear implant is surgically implanted under the skin behind the ear. The surgeon puts the electrode array inside the inner ear and than inside the cochlea. The implant works by a device outside the ear, which rests on the skin behind the ear. It is held upright by a magnet and is also connected by a lead to a sound professor.

In today’s society there is an ongoing debate of weather children who are deaf should receive cochlear implants. A cochlear implant is a device that takes sound wave and changes the waves into electrical activity for the brain to interpret. Wire called electrodes are surgically implanted into the cochlear nerve which receives a signal from the microphone attached to the transmitter and speech processor. The microphone captures the sound from the environment and the speech processor filters the noise versus speech. Then the transmitter sends an electrical signal through the electrodes to stimulate the cochlear nerve. Every person has a different thought depending on their experiences in their life whether deaf children should receive cochlear

54.Cochlear Implant: device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through

Cochlear implants consists of three external parts: a microphone, a speech processor, and a transmitter. The internal parts include: a receiver and stimulator and an array of up to 22 electrodes, depending on how much amplification is needed. Cochlear implants work by bypassing all the damaged parts of the ear to directly stimulate the tiny hair cells on the cochlea that direct sound frequencies to the auditory nerve. (ASHA 2013)

The National Institute on Deafness defines the cochlear implant as, “… a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.” The cochlear implant was first introduced in 1979 and it is estimated that 324,000 implants have been implanted worldwide. The surgery is proven to work better when the child being implanted is young, preferably younger than five. It is ideal to implant a child before their language or speech has developed. The FDA has approved children as young as 12-months old to receive the cochlear implant.

There are many things that people in the hearing world take for granted every day, such as verbal communication, using a telephone or something as simple as the feeling you get when your favorite song comes on the radio. To a person that has been completely immersed in the deaf community, it may be easy to view the sense of sound as unnecessary. As a member of the haring community it would seem nearly impossible to live a day without sound. Cochlear implants are devices that help a person who is deaf gain hearing to some degree, and in some cases nearly full hearing. This new technology has become very controversial throughout both the hearing, and the deaf world.

Deafness or hard of hearing, is defined by the medical society as a disability, but those who are diagnosed with the disability think otherwise. They think of themselves as a community, embrace it as an identity, or a culture with their own language, sign language, and they believe their community is being threaten. They label themselves as a minority endangered of being wiped out because of one leading cause, cochlear implants. Those serious about their ideals of their community see cochlear implants as a threat, because cochlear implants are considered as cure. Countless number of controversies over cochlear implants have been brought up, but the Deaf community should see cochlear implants as gift for patients rather than an extreme threat.

There are used in children as young as one year of age. Doing the operation this early provides a greater chance of the child catching up on speech and other areas of the development. But the age at which each individual child receives an implant will depend on many factors. Children who have additional health problems, who are underweight, or who have certain types of hearing loss may not be eligible for implants temporarily or permanently Currently modern medical techniques have resulted in the creation of many options that a person can use to compensate for a hearing deficit or complete loss. The cochlear implant is placed directly into the ear and looks like a seashell-shaped organ in the inner ear lined with 30,000 hair cells. In a normal cochlea, the hair cells turn sound into impulses that are sent to the brain where they are interpreted as speech, music, or other auditory information about the world. In most deaf persons, auditory nerve fibers are intact, but the mechanism to receive the information through the hair cells is absent. Thus, regular hearing aids are ineffective as they typically only boost the amplitude of sound input. The cochlear implant is a wire that replaces a person's missing hair cells, it wraps inside the cochlea and, attached to a small external computer typically worn on the person's belt, also translates sound into impulses sent to a transmitter that relays it back to the implant, that relays it to the brain. At this time, only one implant is being done per person, as developers of the device have not perfected how to coordinate the operation of two implants to provide accurate information relay to the

To this day, medical professionals and scientists dialogue about the issue of providing cochlear implants, electronic devices to aid one’s auditory perception, to the overall deaf population (NIDCD). Some claim they should be given to deaf children and adults, while others oppose this perspective, because of vexatious burdens that supersede few benefits.

Infants and children who suffer from hearing loss are at an increased risk for developing delayed speech, language, social, and emotional skills 1. Many children who suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss have great success with hearing aids, however those who are born profoundly deaf cannot benefit from hearing aids alone. If a profoundly deaf individual chooses to hear their only option is to have cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are a two-part system consisting of external and internal parts 2. The external part is much like a hearing aid that has a transmitter, speech processor, and microphone 2. The internal parts consist of the receiver and electrodes. The speech processor process sounds, sends the code to the transmitter 2. The

So what is a cochlear implant? According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, “A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin” (NIDCD). Cochlear implants do not restore a person’s hearing and work differently from a hearing aid. The implants, “bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Signals generated by the implant are sent by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which recognizes the signals as sound”

The cochlear implant consists of 5 key components: a microphone, speech processor, transmitter, receiver/ stimulator and an electrode array. It is essential that all of these components operate with extreme precision in order for the brain to interpret the sounds it’s receiving, and this is where the physics gets

Advancements in Information Technology have now made it possible to restore hearing to the profoundly deaf by inserting a prosthetic device called the Bionic Ear (also known as the Cochlear Implant) in an individual’s inner ear. The Bionic Ear technology is an example of design and innovation combined with information processing, software design and development. Since it was first invented, technology advancements proceeded on a parallel track in terms of miniaturisation and increasing sophistication of this Bionic Ear technology. This particular technology operates by delivering electrical stimuli to the auditory nerve which then triggers auditory

The Baha works via bone conduction. According to CochlearTM, sounds are picked up by the sound processor and pass them through pieces surgically implanted in the bone behind the ear. The vibrations are sent directly through the bone to the cochlea where they are converted to electrical impulses sent to the brain from the inner ear.