Benefits of Cochlear Implants

At the advent of cochlear implants, a lot of deaf people or those who are severely hard-of-hearing and those suffering from sensorineural hearing loss have undergone this kind of surgical procedure. For children who are born with deafness, early cochlear implantation is advised so that they may normally develop their language, speech, and social skills. They begin learning these skills before the age of two or three. Patients with long-term deafness will be subjected in learning and re-learning of sound signals in the brain.

Since cochlear implants don’t actually restore the normal hearing function of people, the useful hearing results of the implants vary from one individual to another. Some patients slowly develop the ability to recognize speech or sound without looking at hand signals or lip-reading. Others still rely on lip-reading for total speech understanding. Other patients fall somewhere in between these two categories.

All cochlear implant recipients usually notice that they have improved voice monitoring, improved ability to recognize normal everyday environmental sounds, improved speech or lip-reading, and the ability to hear softer sounds. Some recipients find it hard to use the telephone but others learn to converse over the telephone. Sometimes background noise still becomes a hindrance with the ability to understand speech. In an environment where background noise is inevitable, cochlear implant patients may need to rely on lip-reading for effective communication.

Adults often benefit immediately since they can learn and comprehend at a fast pace. Children, however, only improve at a slower pace since they needed a lot of training to help them use their hearing. Most cochlear implant users also perceive different loud, medium, and soft sounds ranging from doors slamming to telephone ringing to leaves rustling. Others like the fact that they can watch TV more easily. Others, who still rely on lip-reading, like some TV shows where they can see the speaker’s face, others also enjoy listening to music ranging from certain instrument sounds to the singers’ voices.

There are several factors that affect the benefits that recipients get from their cochlear implants. One of the factors involved is the auditory memory which pertains to the recipient’s exposure to sound before hearing was lost, if ever possible. The status of the cochlea is one of the most vital factors since the implant mainly relies on the remaining number of functioning auditory nerve fibers. The greater the number of functioning auditory nerve fibers, the greater the outcome and benefits from the cochlear implants.