Hearing Center Specialists Can Treat Individuals with Damaged Auditory Nerves with Cochlear Implants

The dedicated specialists that work in a hearing center see many people who are completely deaf or have a severe loss of hearing due to damaged auditory nerves. For some of these patients they may be able to offer some type of relief to bring them out of their quiet and lonely world. This relief can come in the form of a cochlear implant. Cochlear implants work wonders for a variety of different people. They work amazingly well for adults who have lost most of their hearing as the aging process occurred and also for children who have been deaf since birth. A cochlear implant has several different parts that work together in order to produce audible sounds in an individual.

The first is a dynamic duo: the microphone and speech processor. The microphone works much the same way as any other microphone. Its job is to pick up sounds from its wearer's surroundings and send them to the speech processor. The speech processor receives sounds that have been picked up by the microphone. It works to arrange them into different categories and turns them into a signal that is sent to the transmitter.

The transmitter receives the coded signals from the speech processor. It decodes the signal that was sent and turns it into an electric impulse. This electric impulse is key in recognizing sounds. This is the part that is most unlike a hearing aid. A hearing aid works like the microphone. It picks up sounds from the environment and amplifies them in front of the person's eardrum, so they can hear sounds around them clearly. However, the transmitter provides stimulation to the auditory nerve, a nerve that sends impulses to the hearing part of the brain. Audiologists in a hearing center will usually recommend a cochlear implant to someone who has some type of damage to this nerve.

Once the transmitter turns the signals into an electric impulse, it transmits them to the electrode array. The electrode array works as a sorter. It takes the impulses sent by the transmitter and sends them to the different parts of the auditory nerve, which carries them directly to the brain. Once they have been sent to the appropriate parts and carried away by the nerve, the brain is able to recognize them. While how the brain recognizes them may not be a completely accurate representation of the sound, it is still enough to help the individual recognize the sounds that different things make, which is key in understanding speech.

The expert medical staff in a hearing center works closely with individuals that have damage to their auditory nerve in one or both of their ears. Cochlear implants can improve many of these patients' hearing and their lives. The hearing center staff works not only as medical support for these patients but also as an advocate, ensuring that all of their hearing needs are met to the absolute best of their abilities.