Over the last 20 years, cochlear implants (CIs) have become what is arguably the most successful neural prosthesis. Despite this success, a significant number of CI recipients experience marginal hearing restoration, and, even among the best performers, restoration to normal fidelity is rare. In current practice the programming of the implant relies on behavioral tests and is done without the benefit of information that can be derived from pre- and post-operative images. Over the last 10 years, we have developed a series of techniques that permit the visualization of the inner ear anatomy and of the implanted arrays. Using this information we have developed methods to provide personalized programming guidance to the audiologist. We have evaluated this approach on both adults and children long-term recipients and we have shown that this new image-guided cochlear programming approach leads to improved outcomes. In this presentation we will cover the various steps that are required to provide routine programming assistance and we will present results we have obtained with more than 200 recipients.
Posted by: Nathan Galli