New Improved Cochlear Implant Device!

As technology continues to help improve hearing for people with hearing loss this one cochlear implant technology (edited to add - actually a neural implant) isnt like your average cochlear implant. This implant is so small it can be inserted underneath the skin where the implantee can swim or even take a shower with it still on hearing the drops of water and the splash and gurgling sound underwater at a swimming pool.

In normal hearing, there is a strong response corresponding to frequency played. With the conventional cochlear implant, the brain registered sound, but not at a specific frequency. With the new intra-neural implant, the graph shows a strong, specific response–similar to normal hearing.

Middlebrooks explains the benefits of the new device. “It will give people hopefully better hearing in complex environments and also some perception of pitches, so they’ll be able to enjoy music and also understand the melodious quality of other people’s voices.”

He adds the implant has another advantage. It’s so small and uses so little electricity, it may be possible to implant the entire device under the skin. That means people could wear them in the shower or while swimming, giving them 24-hour-a-day hearing with no external battery to charge.

Researchers need to verify the safety of the new implants. And they hope to start human trials in about five years. In the meantime, Middlebrooks encourages people to go ahead and get a cochlear implant now if they are a good candidate for one. Doctors should still be able to implant an intra-neural device at a later time when it becomes available.

While electronic components continue to shrink in size more and more people will soon turn to these newly improved cochlear implants or upcoming neural implants as a viable option to help restore some hearing with even better clarity and sound discrimination. Choices will soon get easier for hearing parents of deaf children whether to implant them or not as long it's an informed decision.

Hattip - Mizhko.