The cochlear implant and possibilities for narrowing the remaining gaps between prosthetic and normal hearing

World Journal of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery
Blake S Wilson

Abstract

The cochlear implant has become the standard of care for severe or worse losses in hearing and indeed has produced the first substantial restoration of a lost or absent human sense using a medical intervention. However, the devices are not perfect and many efforts to narrow the remaining gaps between prosthetic and normal hearing are underway. To assess the present status of cochlear implants and to describe possibilities for improving them. The present-day devices work well in quiet conditions for the great majority of users. However, not all users have high levels of speech reception in quiet and nearly all users struggle with speech reception in typically noisy acoustic environments. In addition, perception of sounds more complex than speech, such as most music, is generally poor unless residual hearing at low frequencies can be stimulated acoustically in conjunction with the electrical stimuli provided by the implant. Possibilities for improving the present devices include increasing the spatial specificity of neural excitation by reducing masking effects or with new stimulus modes; prudent pruning of interfering or otherwise detrimental electrodes from the stimulation map; a further relaxation in the criteria for implant c...Continue Reading

Methods Mentioned

BETA
Cochlear Implants
cochlear implant

Software Mentioned

PowerPoint

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