Cochlear implant in patients with residual hearing.
OBJECTIVE
The postoperative speech perception abilities of severely hearing-impaired patients with multi-channel cochlear implant were compared with preoperative speech perception performance with conventional hearing aids.


METHODS
Cochlear implantation was performed in six severely to profoundly hearing-impaired patients. They had unaided pure-tone thresholds of 70-100-dB HL and aided thresholds of 35-90-dB HL in the better ear, but were not able to perceive speech sounds well with hearing aids.


RESULTS
Postoperatively, all the patients had significantly improved speech perception performance, exceeded the average skills of profoundly deaf cochlear implant users, and were able to communicate without writing.


CONCLUSIONS
These results imply that cochlear implant may be indicated for severely to profoundly deaf subjects, if they receive little or no benefit from conventional hearing aids.
Shiomi
Y
Y
Department of Hearing and Speech Science, Kyoto University, Graduate School of Medicine, Japan. yshiomi@yb3.so-net.ne.jp
Naito
Y
Y
Honjo
I
I
Fujiki
N
N
Kaneko
K
K
Takahashi
H
H
Yamashita
M
M
Kawano
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone / Q000379:methods; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D003638:Deafness / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011182:Postoperative Care; D011300:Preoperative Care; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*