We had our daughter's first visit with the CI team. They did behavioral testing and it matched her ABR with no response across the board. From an audiology standpoint, she's a candidate for implants. Next comes the medical testing. Quite a few decisions to be made.
1. To implant or not implant. (Pending medical testing) still undecided but leaning towards yes.
2. Unilateral or bilateral. Not sure why anyone would go unilateral if they're bilateral candidates and have the funds. Maybe there's a theory about saving an ear for future advancements, but thats kind of sketchy to me.
3. Both full implants or one long, one short. Our implant center is participating in a study that looks at performance with one "long" and one "short" implant. The short implant is not thought to be as invasive and potentially saves any residual hearing for future technological advancements. They say preliminary results show no difference, but they've only enrolled 12 subjects. That and she supposedly has no hearing to start with, so saving residual seems odd.
4. Cochlear or Advanced Bionics. The implant center gives us the choice of either. Cochlear seems to win the PR game, but AB seems to hold its own with technology. Seems like a toss up.
1. To implant or not implant. (Pending medical testing) still undecided but leaning towards yes.
2. Unilateral or bilateral. Not sure why anyone would go unilateral if they're bilateral candidates and have the funds. Maybe there's a theory about saving an ear for future advancements, but thats kind of sketchy to me.
3. Both full implants or one long, one short. Our implant center is participating in a study that looks at performance with one "long" and one "short" implant. The short implant is not thought to be as invasive and potentially saves any residual hearing for future technological advancements. They say preliminary results show no difference, but they've only enrolled 12 subjects. That and she supposedly has no hearing to start with, so saving residual seems odd.
4. Cochlear or Advanced Bionics. The implant center gives us the choice of either. Cochlear seems to win the PR game, but AB seems to hold its own with technology. Seems like a toss up.