The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Thanks to cochlear implant, this A.P. boy can hear now

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 16, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Thanks to cochlear implant, this A.P. boy can hear now

Staff Reporter

Procedure is the only solution for children born deaf, says doctor

CHENNAI: Four-year-old Azimuddin will now be able to hear his name for the first time, appreciate music at his home in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, and enrol in a normal school instead of an institution for the deaf.

The boy, congenitally deaf, regained the sensory faculty after a cochlear implant performed by a team of surgeons at KKR ENT Hospital and Research Institute here.

The high-resolution, 90 K bionic ear cochlear implant will give the patient near-normal hearing, ability to process sounds and to pick up one voice from a cluster of voices. But, it will be at least two years of intensive training and speech and hearing therapy that he will be ready for school.

"Surgery is just the first step to rehabilitation, the speed and quality of which rests on the involvement of the parents, primarily the mother," said Ravi Ramalingam.

It is important to take into account the fact that a boy, emerging from a world of stony silence, needs to do a lot of catching up to become normal.

This is the 25th surgery with this sophisticated cochlear implant performed by a team led by Dr. Ravi and K. K. Ramalingam.

Cochlear implantation is the only solution for children born deaf or adults who have lost hearing due to various reasons, mainly meningitis, said Dr. Ravi, who heads the Cochlear Implantation Programme at the hospital.

Expensive

However, barely one or two cases out of a 100 patients are actually able to afford the highly-expensive cochlear implants.

The 90 K bionic implant cost Rs. 5.85 lakhs — it is the cheapest in a line of models with a maximum pricing of Rs. 9.25 lakhs.

The advantages of this implant over previous ones include a much higher speed of stimulation which means more information is delivered to the cochlea, helping the patient enjoy a better clarity and quality of speech and sound.

The human cochlea is stimulate at over 90,000 times per second, facilitating almost normal hearing.

The KKR Hospital has introduced schemes to enable more patients to undergo a cochlear implant by channelling philanthropic aid and arranging bank loans.

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