Bilateral Hearing with Single CI Processor

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The Daily Mail, UK - February 15, 2011

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Single hearing aid helps you hear in BOTH ears

By

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y & authornamef=Lucy+Elkins>

Lucy Elkins

Marnie McCarthy used to think her three teenage sons were pleasantly quiet.

But then she heard them properly for the first time and realised just how

noisy they really are.

Until six months ago, Marnie had never heard the voices of her boys, aged

17, 14 and 12. Nor had she heard the sound of birdsong, laughter or a

ringing telephone. That's because Marnie, now 45, was born almost totally

deaf.

She wore hearing aids, but her hearing loss had been becoming increasingly

worse over the years. Even with the aids, she could hear only the very

loudest sounds.

Hearing in two ears allows people to hear speech better and means a patient

can hear where a sound is coming from

And because the devices amplify all noise, it was almost impossible for her

to pick out voices, even when she was in a quiet environment.

Yet she is now able to hear her sons' voices, along with a host of other

`new' sounds, thanks to a recent technological breakthrough — a single

cochlear implant that helps you hear in both ears.

The cochlea is a snail-shaped area in the inner ear which sends sound

signals to the brain. It contains tiny hairs which move in response to sound

vibrations; the cochlea translates this movement into electrical signals.

But sometimes, as in Marnie's case, these tiny hairs are absent at birth, or

more commonly, they deteriorate with age, or are damaged by chemotherapy

drugs.

While some people manage with hearing aids, for more severe cases a cochlear

implant may be used.

It is basically a microphone attached to a receiver. The microphone (and a

speech processor) sit behind the ear and pick out sounds such as speech from

background noise (unlike hearing aids, which amplify all sounds).

The sounds are then transmitted to the receiver, which is surgically

implanted behind the ear.

The receiver sends an electrical impulse down tiny wires to an electrode

curled around the cochlea. This stimulates the nerves which send a signal

to the brain — doing the work of the missing or damaged hairs.

Children born deaf are routinely given an cochlear implant for each ear as

it helps them hear and acquire the ability to speak. However, under NICE

guidelines adults are allowed only one (each implant costs around £20,000).

`Hearing in one ear is obviously better than not at all,' says Mike Pringle,

an ear, nose and throat surgeon at the South Of England Cochlear Implant

Centre at the University of Southampton and Queen andra Hospital,

Portsmouth.

`However, hearing in two ears allows people to hear speech better and means

a patient can hear where a sound is coming from, which has implications for

safety if you're in traffic, for instance.'

The new single implant — the Digisonic Binaural Cochlear Implant — is put

behind one ear and a tiny cable measuring just over 1mm is tunnelled under

the scalp over the top of the head to the other inner ear

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Complete story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1357108/Single-hearing-aid-helps-h

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