article on bilateral CI

Very interesting.
personally I am convinced bi-lateral CI is better than one for this precise reason- better sound orientaton.
I see huge difference with my one or two HAs on.


Please note in this article they say second CI works better if done BEFORE age 8 years old.

deaf children who get their second implant before age eight adapt to the device more rapidly and understand words better than older children,
Click to expand...

I suppose bi-lateral implants will be as common in future as bi-lateral HAs.

Fuzzy
 
Good to read such info.
Sometimes, we think we're the only ones that have a child with bi-lateral CI. But then, it's "standard" in Norway now where they catch-up and offer the second CI to children. The youngest now are offered bi-lateral at the first (and therefor last) operation.

The article mentioned "whispering" and that was one of the beautiful things with Lotte, our daughter. When we wisper to her, she understands and whispers back to us... It's great.

But it's also a great help to filtering out noise.
As said before in a topic. The additional benefit is not as huge as the first CI, it's bigger than just "perceiving direction". In addition it's better hearing in noisy environment (I put a link somewhere with a Presentation how that works in the brain) and - as we found out - if one fails, there's still another one!

Still, we are fortunate that the Norwegian government pays for it.. We would have done it if we had to pay the second one ourself, but this was not needed.
 
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I still think that getting a second implant should be....not impossible, but on the other hand I think it should be limited to the absolute worst cases. Cloggy, you have to understand that in the US, hearing aids aren't generally covered. This is one way to get some wiggle room, and to get health insurance to cover listening technology. Trust me.....here in the states you can practically doctor/clinic shop. If a failsafe is put into place, to ensure that ONLY the absolute worst cases are being implanted, and it's not being abused, as an exucse to get the LATEST GREATEST MOST MODREN technology, then perhaps I'd be a little more accepting of bilateral implantion.
 
Cloggy,

Thanks for bringing up the point about the benefits are not as great as the first one. As for whispering, I have always been mostly able to do that with my HA (until the last five years or so) and now with my CI I have that back again. Not sure why bilaterals will really make a difference with whispering as one generally "whispers" toward one ear anyway.

DD,

I hear you. I would prefer that the visually impaired be considered first and foremost and then go from there. I agree that there needs to be some assistance with HAs as so many people have a hard time affording them these days. I wish the HA manufacturers would make solid basic HAs inexpensively for people. Then, this would be less of an issue all around with bilaterals.
 
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