Outcomes
Outcome Measures in Adults
A Cochlear Implant is an aid to hearing and not a cure for deafness. Adults remain deaf, and have to learn to use an implant with the help and support of their family, implant team, and local professionals. It is important that the cochlear implant candidate and their families accept the reality of being deaf, and do not think that the cochlear implant will make them a hearing person. In order to decide whether a cochlear implant is an option for them, patients need to know what the likely benefit is for their particular hearing history. Despite some media reports, a cochlear implant is not a bionic ear!
There are three main sources of information about the outcome of cochlear implantation. Firstly, there is published, scientific information. Secondly, there are personal accounts from the users of cochlear implants and their families. Finally, there is information from organisations that exist to represent the interests of Deaf people.
Scientific literature
The outcome from a cochlear implant is dependent on a number of factors. These include the duration of deafness, the use of residual hearing with hearing aids and the preferred mode of communication. In carefully selected and appropriately fitted adults, cochlear implants have been found to help monitor everyday sounds and to detect speech. Benefits from implantation are not immediate, and may take many months if not years to develop. In the longer term, the majority of those implanted are able to use the cochlear implant as an aid to lip reading, to monitor their own speech production and to detect environmental sounds. Some cochlear implant users understand common phrases without lip-reading and some are be able to use the telephone. Most adults that are implanted in the UK, use their implants all day, and continue to do so after many years.
A large study on the results from hundreds of adult cochlear implant users in the United Kingdom was carried out and published by the Institute of Hearing Research in 1990-1994 (Summerfield AQ, Marshall DH (1995) Cochlear Implantation in the UK 1990-1994: Main Report. London: HMSO Books).
The study demonstrated that the cochlear implants are safe for adults. They were found to be effective and acceptably cost-effective in relation to other specialised interventions routinely purchased in the British health-care system.
http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/cii
Cochlear Implants International is a new journal, published biannually, aimed at all those involved with cochlear implants: surgery, pre- and post-operative care, research or manufacture of the implants themselves.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Personal Accounts
"Cochlear Implants in Deafened Adults: A collection of accounts written by deafened people describing their experiences of cochlear implants." Link Centre for Deafened People
LINK - The British Centre for Deafened People
19 Hartfield Road
Eastbourne
East Sussex BN21 2AR
Tel: 01323 638230 (voice and minicom)
E-mail: Linkcntr@dircon.co.uk
"Broken Silence: The moving story of a profoundly deaf woman's return to the world of sound" Shirley Ackehurst. Collins Publishers Australia 1989. ISBN 0-7322-2488-8
Organisations
National Association of Deafened People
PO Box 50
Amersham
HP6 6XB
Voice Phone: 01227 379538
Textphone: 01227 762879
Fax: 01227 379538
Website: www.nadp.org.uk
Email: enquiries@nadp.org.uk
and
National Cochlear Implant Users' Association
Longacre
Horsleys Green
High Wycombe
Bucks HP14 3UX
E-mail: alisonh@horsleys.demon.co.uk
Link to prospective patients / more info / patients
Further Reading
Allum, DJ (1996) Cochlear Implant Rehabilitation in Children and Adults.
Whurr Publishers Ltd, London
Cooper, H. (1993) Cochlear Implants. A Practical Guide.
Whurr Publishers Ltd, London