Have you assumed that all hearing impaired people qualified for a traditional hearing aid? This is a natural assumption but it’s not accurate. In fact, some people have such a severe hearing issue that they must use an electric cochlear implant, which involves surgically implanted components in under the skin on the skull. This is becoming a popular option for those with bad hearing loss because they offer so much more than a simple ear-worn hearing aid. Some parts are located externally behind the ear. With many technologies available to hearing impaired people, electric cochlear implants go well beyond the traditional hearing aid to offer a better solution to those with profound hearing loss. Like hearing aids, they come with many advantages that we will look at here.
How Do Cochlear Implants Function?
The microphone, sitting on the outside of the ear, picks up sounds, then passes them on to the speech processor. This is near the microphone. Alternately, this can be worn in other places on the body to interpret and digitize sound. The transmitter detects the sound which gives the signals to the receiver underneath the skin. All signals are sent to the electrodes cluster located in the cochlea. This sits behind the ear and under the skin, where electrodes activate special fibers on the auditory nerve. Cochlear implants, necessary for many people in which a hearing aid simply won’t provide the hearing help they need, allows users to experience crisp, clear sound waves to get through their daily lives as efficiently as possible.
Benefits of Cochlear Implants
Electric cochlear implants are superior to hearing aids in many cases because they’re meant for kids and adults who live with a high degree of hearing loss. These devices accomplish much more than a simple hearing aid. In fact, they allow the individual to clearly pick up on sounds such as speech and surround environmental sound.
What Makes A Cochlear Implant?
Cochlear implants are devices, made up of several different parts, that can simulate sound for the wearer. Most parts of the device are located on the outside of the ear, while other pieces of the device feature implantation into the skin behind the ear. The parts of the device that are located on the external surface of the body are the microphone, speech processor, and a transmitter. Implanted beneath the skin are a receiver and an electrode cluster.