Vaccination Can Lessen Meningitis Risk For Cochlear Implant Patients

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a new warning that cochlear implant patients make sure they get vaccinated against bacterial meningitis, a potentially deadly infection causing inflammation of the meninges, or lining of the brain. Several years ago a meningitis scare nearly halted the miraculous forward march of cochlear implant technology, as researchers struggled to find the cause of a rash of meningitis cases among children who had received implants. It was determined that a small rubber wedge used by surgeons to position the electrodes in the cochlea most likely led to higher incidences of infection, including meningitis. The positioner was only used with Advanced Bionics implants and the company quickly changed its surgical procedure so that the positioner was no longer needed. There still is some risk of meningitis infections, but it can be dramatically alleviated by ensuring patients are fully vaccinated. The FDA issued the new warning after two cochlear implant patients died from infections. Neither was fully vaccinated, and one likely died because of the lack of vaccination, the FDA said. It also noted a survey of cochlear implanted children revealed nearly half did not know whether their children had been fully vaccinated. It is advising healthcare providers to ensure their patients have proper vaccinations.

Posted by David on Oct 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NBA Basketball Legend Kevin McHale Supports Cochlear Implants For Kids

By Jake Copithorne

Former Boston Celtics great and current Minnesota Timberwolves General Manager Kevin McHale has recently made news for his 5-for-1 NBA mega-trade, but it’s his 4-for-1 deal that's been turning heads outside the basketball world: four cochlear implants for the cost of one. In partnership with four other board members, McHale has co-founded the Help Me Hear Foundation, an organization dedicated to granting free cochlear implants to impoverished deaf children.  He will also act as the foundation's national spokesperson.

The cost of a cochlear implant, including the required surgery, can range from $30,000 to $50,000.  The necessary post-op rehabilitation can be equally expensive.  But HMH plans to cut that often unaffordable price tag to only $7,000, all paid by tax-deductable donations to the foundation. If McHale could make bargains like that at his day job, the Timberwolves would have made the playoffs!

HMH has the ambitious goal of granting 200 cochlear implants to deaf children by the end of 2008, and then doubling that number in each of the following three years.  By 2011, the organization hopes to have provided a total of 1,600 cochlear implants to children in need.

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Posted by David on Aug 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Future Cochlear Implant Patients Might Preserve Some Residual Hearing

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new, less-invasive means of implanting electrodes into the cochlea that may ultimately do less damage to hearing nerves in the cochlea and preserve more residual hearing in the patient. The new electrode is thinner and can be inserted with a new device that enables doctors to monitor their progress and avoid doing the kind of damage that currently results in most implant patients losing most or all of what is left of their natural hearing. Because cochlear implants directly stimulate the auditory nerve they are able to bypass the hairlike cilia hearing cells that line the cochlea. And because it is designed to go deeper into the cochlea, it may provide more stimulation of low-frequency sounds, which could significantly improve the hearing of implantees. The new electrode is being tested on animals and would not be available for human patients for at least four years. But when it arrives, because it is made with the same materials used to make semiconductor chips, it will bring implant patients one step closer to true "Bionic Man" status that Michael Chorost has written about in Rebuilt.

Posted by David on Aug 16, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Advanced Bionics Is An Independent Cochlear Implant Maker Again

In 2004, it seemed to be a marriage made in heaven: Boston Scientific, the world's leading manufacturer of cardiac stents and other implant devices, acquired Advanced Bionics, one of the world's three cochlear implant manufacturers for $740 million plus additional payments based on future growth. But the marriage quickly soured and after several difficult years dissolved entirely last week. Boston Scientific agreed to return the Advanced Bionics cochlear implant and a line of drug-pump products back to Mann and other members of the original management team, and Boston Scientific will keep the Advanced Bionics pain management business, which includes a spinal-cord stimulator to manage chronic pain. The match was problematic nearly from its inception.

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Posted by David on Aug 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Postmodern Man: Michael Chorost's Cochlear-Implant Book, Rebuilt, Is About A Whole Lot More Than Cochlear Implants

You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about cochlear implants, and more, from Michael Chorost's new book, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human.  But even if he is this month's favorite poster boy for cochlear implant maker Advanced Bionics, the book isn't about cochlear implants.  And for all his talk about cyborgs and Steve Austen (remember The $6-Million Man?), it isn't a book about humankind's future as a new species dependant upon and controlled by digital computer intelligence either.  Rather, it's a meditation on the postmodern pursuit of knowledge and understanding during a global information revolution that has not only made the world a much smaller place but also smashed many of our most deeply held assumptions about reality -- a world where the things we previously thought we knew, about everything from the hard-and-fast "facts" of Newtonian physics to the formerly sacred values and ideals of the Western "classics," are not only being called into question but also demanding immediate answers.

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Posted by David on Jun 26, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Infants With Cochlear Implants Get More Language Sooner

A recent research report published by a team at Indiana University provides more evidence that the younger a hearing-impaired child receives a cochlear implant, the quicker he or she is to acquire spoken language.  The researchers tested 70 children four months before they received cochlear implants and again at six, 12, 18, 24 and 30 months after implantation.  "Children who are born deaf or who become profoundly deaf before the age of three typically experience significant delays in their acquisition of English language skills," said Mario A.Svirsky, associate professor of otolaryngology at the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis.  "The gap between a hearing-impaired child's chronological age and his language age typically continues to increase as the child grows older.  However, we have found that when a child receives a cochlear implant, the child begins to develop language skills at about the same rate as a child with normal hearing.  In other words, the gap stops growing.  Some children with cochlear implants develop language at a faster rate and actually start to approach the linguistic levels of their age peers who have normal hearing."

Posted by David on May 15, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cochlear Implants and Music

I went to my daughter's piano recital last night and she was phenomenal.  Because all music is horribly distorted for me, I couldn't hear how well she played, but the response from the audience was awesome.  My heart swelled.  It also reminded me I've been meaning to point out a good article in the Bionic Beat newsletter.  It's for people who have Bionic Ear cochlear implants from Advanced Bionics, but it's still an interesting read for anyone with hearing loss.  (When you get to the website, click on Volume 2, Issue 1 - March 2005: "Is it Music to Your Ears?")  I've written before about the misery of music distortion with hearing loss, but the Bionic Beat article explains a lot that I'd never understood about how the ear processes music.  When you get a cochlear implant, it restores much ability to discern sound, but comprehension is another matter -- it takes time for the brain to "map" sounds to intelligible words, music, etc.  Some who've gotten the implants regain more hearing and understanding than others; most continue to have to cope with a significant hearing impairment like people with normal hearing aids.  My hearing loss is very much like what an implant recipient ends up with when speech is intelligible in the right conditions but music is incoherent.  But cochlear implants are getting better all the time as developers create new algorithms for signal processors to better simulate the functions previously performed by the damaged hearing organs. It's comforting to know so much research is being done to improve the situation and exciting to think about what the future will bring.

Posted by David on May 13, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What About Cochlear Implants?

There's a terrific story in today's Wall Street Journal about the rapid increase in the number of children receiving implants before the age of three.   To date approximately 10,000 children have received cochlear implants in the U.S., and the reported results are outstanding: kids who in the past would have found it very difficult to develop normal speech are able to start hearing early enough to learn spoken language at a normal developmental age.

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Posted by David on Mar 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)