*Currently, we do not fit pediatric cochlear implant patients.
What is a Cochlear Implant?
If you or your loved one are straining to hear each day, even when using powerful hearing aids, cochlear implants may be a solution. Cochlear implants work differently from hearing aids. Hearing aids help those who have mild to severe hearing loss and have some remaining healthy sensory hair cells in the inner ear that can transmit sound to the brain using amplification. Cochlear implants help those with moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears who are not receiving enough benefit when using hearing aids.
They are designed to help you get back the sounds you’ve been missing by giving you the clarity you need to hear better and understand speech, even in noisy situations.
How Cochlear Implants Work
Cochlear implants are designed to mimic the function of a healthy inner ear (or cochlea). They replace the function of damaged sensory hair cells inside the inner ear to help provide clearer sound than what hearing aids can provide.
A cochlear implant system, like the industry-leading Cochlear™ Nucleus® System, has two parts:
- The external sound processor
- The implant that is surgically placed under the skin and attached to an electrode array that is placed in the inner ear.
Together, these parts bypass the part of the ear that isn’t working, sending sound straight to the hearing nerve.