The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Help at hand for the hearing impaired

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 07, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Help at hand for the hearing impaired

Ramya Kannan

RARE SURGERY: Two-and-a-half year- old Mohammed Syed Abrar, who recently received a cochlear implant seen with his mother Mahay, in Chennai on Tuesday. — Photo: Vino John

CHENNAI: Technology will make Mohammed Syed Abrar's disability seem like a fashion statement. The two-and-a-half-year-old will soon have what looks like a mobile phone's bluetooth-enabled earphone behind his ear. That little device is no bluetooth, however. It will help him hear.

At first glance, there is no sign that Mohammed Syed Abrar cannot hear. He is sprightly and mischievous, gesticulating and exclaiming. It took the seasoned eye of his grandmother to discover that the child was not responding to sound, but only to movement and light.

A trip to an ENT specialist confirmed that the boy was profoundly deaf in both ears. Abrar's parents, Afzal and Mahay, who are from Mangalore but live in Saudi Arabia, took the child to the Madras ENT Research Foundation.

Specialists at MERF recommended a cochlear implant. Dr. Mohan Kameswaran of MERF told Abrar's parents that the device, inserted into the cochlea of Abrar's ear, would enable hearing by turning sound into an electrical impulse that the brain would recognise. The costs were however high: the imported cochlear device cost Rs. 5.5 lakh.

However, no price was too high and the parents raised the funds for the operation and subsequent rehabilitation. Dr. Kameswaran and his team at MERF performed the operation on November 27. Tests proved that the boy could hear and was responding to sound. He will have to undergo rigorous training with auditory habitationists who will help him speak.

Abrar has turned out to be a milestone for MERF. He was the 150th person that the MERF performed a cochlear implant on. "It is also significant that in this part of the country, there is no funding from the Government or no insurance for cochlear implantees. Therefore, patients will have to bear the expenses themselves. In 10 cases, public and charitable funding helped perform the operation free of charge," Dr. Kameswaran said.

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