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Cochlear Implants

Our son Brendan uses a cochlear implant to hear. Brendan was born completely deaf, and has used his implant to hear since his first birthday. The results are pretty remarkable -- his speech and language have been essentially on par with his peers since he was about 4 years old. He can talk on the phone, watch TV, and generally functions as a hearing child. I take him flying and communicate with him without much trouble in noisy small airplanes using standard aviation headsets.

There certainly has been a lot of controversy in the past about cochlear implants -- there was even an Academy Award nominated documentary about it. All that is meaningless to us -- we are two hearing parents with a deaf child, who -- thanks to the implant -- hears and speaks very well. We couldn't be happier with the results.

Update As of May, 2005, Brendan now uses the ear-level "3G" processor -- in fact two of them. He recently received a second implant, on his left side, and is beginning the process of learning to use both together. See BilateralImplants for more information. Since the the 3G processor uses 3 675 hearing aid batteries, we no longer go use the rechargable AA's except for the rare times we use the body-worn processor.

Update Update As of September, 2005, Brendan is using one ear-level "3G" processor for his right ear (implanted at age 12 months), and a new "Freedom" BTE for his left ear (implanted around age 6). The Freedom has more features and is apparently more sophisticated, but frankly I like the ergonomics of the 3G better. It has an on/off switch rather than a mode and select button and tiny LCD screen. Also the battery compartment seems to fall out easier. Two steps forward one step back.

With bi-lateral implants his hearing is really amazing. He enjoys listening to music, talk on the phone, singing, and so on. He's learning to play the piano. It's hard to imagine being happier with the results.

Nucleus 24 Contour Cochlear Implant Image

Brendan uses one Nucleus 24 Contour, and one Nucleus 24 Freedom, from Cochlear Corporation.

I've gathered together some information that has been useful to us in managing his day-to-day life with this device.

Batteries

The body-worn processor, called the SPrint uses a single AA battery every day. We've had very good luck with rechargeable batteries. In particular, we currently use Maha POWEREX 2200mAH batteries, and always get a full day of use before they are completely exhausted. This certainly wasn't the case with the original rechargeable batteries. We keep eight batteries in rotation, and generally always have about for charged and ready to go.

In addition, we've learned over the years to stash alkaline AA batteries in bags, purses, cars, etc. Running out of power used to be a more frequent occurrence, but since AA NiMH capacities have exceeded 2100 mAH, we generally don't have a problem anymore. Note that battery life is dependent on the specific processor settings (or "MAP") as well as the noise environment of the day, etc.

Since switching to the ear level processors, we've also had to switch to high-power hearing aid zinc-air batteries, which sadly are not rechargeable. Each processor uses three batteries at a time, and the group lasts a little more than three days. So yes, we burn through more than 700 a year!

Flying

I'll cover both commercial aviation (since the question comes up a lot) as well as general aviation (small planes) since that's something I'm interested in too.

Here's the short summary: we're never had any problem with either the security, noise, or pressurization associated with getting through an airport, onto a big jet, and arriving safely at your destination. Brendan just walks right through the metal detector, and generally 'does not' set off the alarm. Sometimes he does, but we just show the implant card, and get a manual scan. Just keeping track of two small kids is much more trouble :-).

If you're lucky enough to fly in a small plane with a general aviation audio panel, I believe it is safe to just plug the processor's "line in" directly into the headset jack, using a physical plug adapter, and the "TV-HiFi" (isolator) cable. I've tested this both with Brendan and with an adult friend who uses a cochlear implant, and the results are quite good -- just jack right in!

I've also flown with Brendan in an open cockpit biplane (very noisy!), and just put a standard aviation headset on him. Since the ear-cup of the headset covers the microphone of the implant, we were able to communicate just fine. I find this result absolutely amazing, plus we both looked damn good wearing leather aviator helmets :-) !

Waterproofing

Please see this separate document for a discussion on waterproofing a Nucleus body-worn (SPrint) processor.

Books

These books were helpful to us in learning about CI's:

Other Resources

Category: cochlear_implants pages

Categories: cochlear_implants categories


This page last modified Wednesday 10 May, 2006 by David Creemer
All content Copyright 2003-2005, David Z Creemer