Who would benefit from cochlear implant ?

One with a profound sensory neural deafness as determined by audiological evaluations.

One who does not benefit from the most powerful hearing aid subsequent to optimisation of hearing aid trial and fitting.

One with no medical contraindication for surgical implantation of the electrodes.

If, in children with access to facilities for extensive speech and language therapy to develop auditory skills and  speech development.

One with a high degree of motivation and appropriate, realistic expectations.

The major factors contributing to the success of a cochlear implant are:

The length of profound deafness prior to the implantation.  This probably is related to the memory for sound.

The development of speech and language skills before acquiring deafness. Clinically, it has been demonstrated that people who have normal speech and acquired deafness subsequently (post-lingual deaf) do better with cochlear implants than those who are born deaf with non-development of speech (post-lingual deaf).   However, studies on pre-lingual deaf implantees have shown satisfactory results,  if the implantation is done at an earlier age (critical to the development of speech and language skills) and supplemented with adequate speech therapy.

The number of functioning nerves in the inner ear.

The speech and audiological  rehabilitation support from the clinic and the support from the family.

The motivation from the patient and his family and their commitment towards the rehabilitation programme.

Contrary to general behalf, the cochlear implant does not restore  the recipient’s hearing to normal levels.  Further, the sound perceived through the implant will be different from that perceived by the normal cochlea.  The sounds have been described as being electronic, similar to a computer generated speech.  Hence, the need for the rehabilitation programme focussing on developing the auditory skills in the new mode.  It needs to be emphasised that communication with a cochlear implant is maximised in conjunction with lip reading rather than audition alone.