[Management of a deaf-blind patient with a 12-channel cochlear implant].
A case study of a deaf-blind patient implanted with the COMBI40+ cochlear implant is presented. The patient is a 70-year-old woman who has been blind since the age of 40. Since 1977 the hearing loss continuously increased. Before surgery she had a very small residual hearing (with hearing aid: 40% speech intelligibility by four syllable numbers) and she used Braille and finger-spelling on her hand to communicate with other people. The patient has a high intelligence and so she did not have any problems when the speechprocessor was fitted and during the hearing therapy. After one month she had an open-set-speech recognition. The quality of her life is much better than before surgery. The communication by finger-spelling on her hand is not necessary any longer.
Schmidt
R
R
Klinik und Poliklinik für Hals-Nasen- und Ohrenkrankheiten der Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald. audiomet@mail.uni-greifswald.de
Werner
E
E
Koch
A
A
D000368:Aged; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D001766:Blindness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003638:Deafness / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D017755:Prosthesis Fitting; D011788:Quality of Life