Case report: top hearing performances of a postlingually deaf cochlear implant user.
On the occasion of the Cochlear Implant Symposium in Geneva in October 1991, top hearing results attained by a young postlingually deaf woman with cochlear implant systems were presented in video recordings. These data are centered on demanding hearing performances in test situations and in a telephone conversation. For various reasons, two reimplantations were necessary in this deaf patient. Initially, she was provided with a single-channel extra-cochlear electrode of the Vienna type, which she found to improve her lipreading substantially, and she attained an unexpectedly good understanding of speech on a purely auditory basis. Today, this postlingually deaf women uses a multichannel intracochlear electrode of the Nucleus type. The excellent results with the first extracochlear system are clearly surpassed with the intracochlear system. Not least because of her above-average speech competence, the cochlear implant user attains a high degree of open speech understanding. Her verbal hearing efficiency is comparable to that of a person with mild to moderately severe hearing loss.
Bucher
P O
PO
Otorhinolaryngology and Maxillocervical Surgery Division, Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, Switzerland.
Mathis
A
A
De Min
N
N
Arnold
W
W
D000293:Adolescent; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003638:Deafness / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test