Advanced Bionics President & CEO Mr. Jeff Greiner will be holding an online chat tonight (Sept. 8th) at 8 PM ET. The topic of the chat is officially about AB’s commitment to support every generation of AB recipient. Most likely the interesting part of the discussion will be the Q & A following the event.
We have seen a tremendous surge in the amount of young children receiving cochlear implants over the past two years. This is due to early infant screenings, and insurance companies becoming more agreeable to the reimbursement of cochlear implantation of younger children.
We’ll have someone on the chat, and try to get some of our questions answered. Some of the topics we’d be interested in are:
How far away are we from the “internal speech processor”?
AB’s response to Cochlear Corporation’s Freedom processor.
Battery life in the body worn processors.
Bilateral cochlear implants – Is this still a novelty or is it becoming standard practice?
What does the insurance reimbursement front look like – both with regards to the actual surgery as well as the follow up care such as audiological and speech/language sessions and evaluations?
We look forward to posting our recap of the chat here.
While we were at the University, our daughter spent most of her time taking part in the testing. We arrived early Tuesday afternoon and spent two hours testing. After we finished, our daughter sampled the amenities of the hotel. Here are some quick scenes to enjoy:
Exercising at the Best Western – Madison, WI
Swimming at the Best Western – Madison, WI
In the second video, she is not wearing her implants, so she can’t hear me.
More to follow…
As we told you previously, our daughter took part in a study to assess the positive effects of bilateral cochlear implants at the Speech and Hearing Lab of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Here is a photo of our daugher looking on as she is placed in the booth with a semi-circle array of speakers. She was instructed to try and detect where the sound is originating from by using a computer mouse to click on the speaker that she believes the sound originates from.
This is to try and gauge the benefits of sound localization that are being realized from having bilateral implants.
We will give more details of her trip in future posts.
When Cochlear Implants first became available, there was this widespread belief that a “cure for deafness” has been found. The myth that is still very popular to this day, is that once a person receives an implant, they are no longer deaf.
Of course, parents of children with cochlear implants know very well that even with a cochlear implant, their child is still very much deaf. Swimming, bathing, school, and even conversations in noisy places are all still very challenging for them. Cochlear implants do provide a tremendous opportunity for the deaf to communicate with general society, and it is only with lots of hard work, patience, and perseverance that they are able to do so.
Michael Moore’s latest film released this past weekend has already caused quite a stir in the movie critic world. Sicko achieved a # 9 spot this weekend even with low coverage. Although most of the reviews were somewhat positive, there seemed to be something noticeably absent from the reviews that we’ve seen so far.
Prominent in the film was the story of a young child who was originally denied coverage for a second cochlear implant, as described in a previous post. We were hoping to see some heavy media coverage about the cochlear implant and its benefits, thereby increasing its awareness to the public. Most implant recipients and their families hate the blank stare they get when they tell people that they have a cochlear implant. It would be nice if this film would expose the world at large to the wonders we experience with them.
However, this does not seem to be the case. None of the reviews I’ve seen so far mention the cochlear implant even with relation to the film, and it appears that most viewers will not come away any more knowledgeable about the implant than before.
This myth is gaining in popularity very quickly. We have found that many friends and family members – who had no idea what a cochlear implant was before our daughter got hers – have suddenly become the world’s foremost experts on hearing loss!
Everyone is suddenly worried that by getting a cochlear implant – your child will be missing out on the upcoming technology that can restore hearing to the damaged hair cells.
This is of course, a ridiculous myth. Although some day science may discover a way to regenerate hair cells in humans, it will be years before this technology is approved for safe use in children. Take a look at the cochlear implant, it was first approved for use in children in 1990, while the first implant was available almost 10 years before then.
Since the approval process takes so long, and we don’t even know where science is holding in this matter, to hold back from implanting your child – and denying their formative years of hearing and language, for the pipe dream of receiving the benefit of hair cell regeneration, is just a plain dumb idea.
Giving your child an implant (or two!) is granting them a gift of life. Do it for them, and do it right away.
At the clinic, what was supposed to be an evaluation turned into a troubleshooting session. Turns out, her coil was no good, and it didn’t allow the unit to turn on. Seems to be a common problem, but because of it, we have to reschedule our evaluation until September!!
Remember, the Nucleus Freedom will not turn on if one of the parts are defective. This is done purposely to ensure that you will not put the processor on when it’s not working properly. Your audiologist can change the settings that a red LED light will shine when the processor is properly connected and is transmitting properly.
If you can put up with all the breaking down, the Freedom’s great features ensure that your child will always be hearing.
An Earlier Post mentioned how the quality of the Nucleus Freedom could use some improvement.
Well apparently, Cochlear seems to have listened. My daughters new body worn controller arrived today, and as can be seen from the photo, they have at least corrected the problem we’ve experienced.
The copper strip where the controls of the unit press down on are imbedded into the controller so that it should not come up easily. In addition, there are strong metal brackets holding it in place. The whole controller seems more rugged, and is likely to last longer.
We will post if anything happens to it in the near future.
One year ago, Cochlear Corp. announced that they received a substantial order of implants for China. A substantial order worth $270 Million!! The order was placed by a Taiwanese Philanthropist who wishes to help the people of China. So what does this all mean for the deaf children of China?
Well, if you take a hard look at the numbers, not much. If you do the math you will see that not many deaf Chinese children will be helped, although it is at least a start.
There are approximetaly 800,000 deaf children in China, according to an official Chinese government source. According to initial estimates this order will be able to implant 15,000 children over the next 6 years. That comes out to a mere 2% of all Deaf children in China that will receive implants from this order!!! (In Europe and the U.S. the percentage of children is nearly 40%.) Obviously, the high cost of the implant is what prevents more children from getting one. In addition, there is a severe shortage of hearing and language experts to help the implanted children after they receive their implants. Although Cochlear states that they are working on this, it is not clear how they will be able to address this massive problem.
Although we are fortunate to live in an age where technological advances have been made to bring hearing to the deaf, sadly, not many of the world’s deaf children will be able to participate.
The Nucleus Freedom has been out on the market for almost two years, and according to the studies performed by Cochlear Corp. and others, the results are very impressive.
However, us parents may not be as satisfied. Although we definitely love the processor’s water resistanceand it’s smaller size, the durability of the device leaves room for improvement. Since almost all the parts are major components of the device (no more just short wires and long wires), it does not make sense to carry around these expensive and hard-to-come by items. If you are away with your child, and something happens to any of the wires, you most likely will not have a replacement handy.
Our daughter uses the Body-worn battery pack. Apparently, since it is only a battery pack and not a processor, they have made it of inferior quality. We have the Freedom implant only about a year, and we are already on our second battery pack.
This image shows how the copper strip that is located under the power and select buttons has come up, which makes it unable to turn on.
Cochlear does have pretty good customer service, and they usually FedEx the replacement parts for free within a few days. However, after the three year period, the warranty expires, and the cost of the replacement parts is borne by the consumer. That is somewhat troublesome given our experience with their durability. Additionally, since the wires are major parts of the system, replacing worn and broken wires after the three year period will be costly. Perhaps it may be worthwhile to invest in Cochlear’s Service Plan.
Advanced Bionics President & CEO Mr. Jeff Greiner will be holding an online chat tonight (Sept. 8th) at 8 PM ET. The topic of the chat is officially about AB’s commitment to support every generation of AB recipient. Most likely the interesting part of the discussion will be the Q & A following the event.
