What do you consider "little benefit from HA?"

Daredevel7

Daredevel7

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I've noticed that a lot of people say that CI is good for those who have little to no benefit from the HA. I wanted to see if people could elaborate more on this. There is so many different levels of hearing (WITH HAs) such as:

-Sound awareness (Just being aware of loud noises)
-Some sound discrimination (Aware of loud noises, and can tell which some of those noises/sounds are)
-Little speech discrimination (Can understand a few words along with many noise/sound identification)
-Some speech discrimination (Can understand some people sometimes, but still need to rely on lipreading or clear/loud speaking)

and so on. At what point do you think the CI starts being beneficial over HA's?
 
Daredevel7 said:
I've noticed that a lot of people say that CI is good for those who have little to no benefit from the CI. I wanted to see if people could elaborate more on this. There is so many different levels of hearing (WITH HAs) such as:

-Sound awareness (Just being aware of loud noises)
-Some sound discrimination (Aware of loud noises, and can tell which some of those noises/sounds are)
-Little speech discrimination (Can understand a few words along with many noise/sound identification)
-Some speech discrimination (Can understand some people sometimes, but still need to rely on lipreading or clear/loud speaking)

and so on. At what point do you think the CI starts being beneficial over HA's?
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i think you've answered your own question by listing the examples above.

my left ear fell under your first example (sound awareness) and my right ear fell under your third example (little speech discrimination).

however, just because i was able to hear vowel sounds with my right ear does not mean i could also identify environmental sounds that i heard because 95% of them were a distorted "blur" when i wore aids.
 
Hear Again said:
i think you've answered your own question by listing the examples above.

in my case, my left ear fell under your first example and my right ear fell under your third example. however, just because i was able to hear vowel sounds with my right ear does not mean i was also able to identify environmental sounds that i heard because 95% of them were a distorted "blur" when i wore aids.
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I see, but you're talking about what you can hear without the HA, correct?
 
i also wanted to mention that "little benefit from hearing aids" differs from person to person. therefore, it's difficult to determine when a ci is beneficial over hearing aids. some people are quite happy being able to only hear environmental sounds with hearing aids while others who understand some speech have the desire to hear more with a ci.
 
Daredevel7 said:
I see, but you're talking about what you can hear without the HA, correct? (for the left ear)
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nope. that's what i heard with my hearing aid. my loss in the left ear started at 95 dB, dropped to 110 dB at 500 and 750 Hz with no measurable hearing aided or unaided at 1000 Hz and above.
 
Hear Again said:
i also wanted to mention that "little benefit from hearing aids" differs from person to person. therefore, it's difficult to determine when a ci is beneficial over hearing aids. some people are quite happy being able to only hear environmental sounds while others who understand some speech have the desire to hear more with a ci.
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Yep, that's what my post is for. I am wondering at what point would people be unhappy with their hearing aids enough to consider a CI. I agree that it's all a matter of opinion, just wondering what people's opinions are.
 
Miss Kat was able to distinguish a few words with her aids, and moderatly loud enviromental sounds.
She was aided to about 30 db with her aids. Without aids she ranged from 70 db in the lowest frequency to 105 in her worst, but the average was about 90.
Many people would say that is functioning well with aids, I really didn't.
 
Here's my little story.

HA's were very helpful for me for 26 years. I had no problem hearing environmental sounds/sound awareness. High frequencies were what I never heard, until CI. Music was very important to me, so I was able to hear music pretty well...however, I needed to rely on lyrics to help me. I had pretty good speech discrimination WITH visual cues such as gestures and lip reading. Without them...I was very poor. In my left, I was at 6% pre-ci. Post-CI - 60% or better.

So, having said this...the CI gave me exactly what I was missing the whole time...more clarity of sounds, pitch, frequencies, high frequencies. Now, I find that I don't have to rely on lip reading so much. I can listen to music a lot better. The past two years I struggled listening to music that I *know* I used to be able to hear very clearly. This was pretty much the breaking point of why I decided to pursue CI. After CI, I could hear music and better than ever. I can listen to the Radio and hear many words that I couldn't hear before due to the ability of hearing the clarity and high frequencies (s, c, z, etc).

For some others, the HA's were just not helpful at all because they never really had much to begin with and was very profoundly deaf (I was 88db loss in my right, now 94db), so HA will NOT help because the HA relies on the amount of residual hearing.
 
If all that my hearing decline amounted to was loss of volume, I would still be wearing ha's today. But, for me, I ended up losing my ability to understand speech. All my tests for my CI showed me flunking speech discrimination. After my implant, but before I was activated, I could barely understand anyone using speech reading. Everything was so garbled and messed up that I was constantly frustrated. At the same time, I could still hear paper tear, horns honk, the sounds of my car while I was driving, etc. Living in a hearing world and being totally oral, I was almost unable to cope.
I have been activated for less than a month and although it's not perfect, I can now speech read better than before and with some people, I can totally understand them without speech reading.
 
Speaking for me, I had zero speech discrimination in my left ear even when wearing my hearing aid and I had severe recruitment.

I never was able to make out the words on the radio other than the name of the stations that were playing pre implantation. Now I can do that even if I don't get everything 100%.
 
Good thread. I have noticed some people posting that they want a CI, b/c they'll be able to hear better in noise or whatever.
I'm awesome with implantation as long as the person really does demonstrate an obvious need for it. I do think that the majority of people do obviously qualify....but there needs to be a bit of tightening just to ensure that the type of person who has to have the latest hardware isn't buying into the hype of CI. (NOT to say that the CI isn't something really amazing.......b/c it IS......it's just that some of the stuff out there makes it seem like it's some super bionic ear)
Oh, and I can totally understand. For profound losses CI vs HA, is akin to what hoh people can hear with BTEs vs dinky aids. The difference is THAT drastic.
 
dd,

why do you keep saying that you agree with ci's for profound loss, but not severe-profound loss? remember, some people with severe-profound loss do not understand speech any better than those with profound loss. it's not the amount of residual hearing that counts -- it's speech discrimination.
 
i also wanted to mention that if a person simply wants a ci to have "the latest and greatest technology," a ci center will not accept them as a candidate. as for the ci being touted as the next "super bionic ear," what else do you expect ci companies to say? they certainly aren't going to make the ci look inferior to a hearing aid. besides, in all of the ci literature i've read, ci companies make it known that ci's are designed for people with severe-profound or profound losses.
 
in my case, prior to implantation i was only able to hear vowel sounds with my left ear and had very little speech discrimination with my right ear (aided).

when it came to music, i could only hear percussion and male lead singers (the latter depended on how strong their voice was).

as for understanding song lyrics, it had been 10 years since i was able to recognize them.

i had been using alternative communication techniques for the deafblind (tactile sign, telebraille/braille tty, print on palm/pop, etc.) for 10 years prior to getting my ci's.

one of the primary reasons i chose to get implants was for my own personal safety as a totally deafblind person as well as the fact that some communication techniques (such as print on palm and braille/raised print alphabet card) were slow and tedious at best.

long story short, i couldn't be happier with the decision i've made and the wonderful hearing my ci's provide.
 
So very little speech discrimination is enough to get a CI then? Is there any moderate/severe moderate people out there who have very little speech discrimination with the hearing aids?

As for me, prior to getting the implant, I had nearly zero speech discrimination. After a month, I am still getting used to the implant but I can definitely hear constants (just need to relearn which is which) and can even hear the sh!! I NEVER heard the sh before!!! I keep saying sh randomly to myself. (Yes I talk to myself)
 
I feel I have good enough benefits from my HAs. People tell me I dont but it is MY decision and my view on whether I have benefits from my HAs or not. I resent people telling me that I can hear better with a CI even after I tell them I am fine. It makes me feel like they think one cant make it in this world without being able to hear and it is a sad way to view people like that.
 
I've never really thought I didn't get much benefit out of a HA, but when I read the comparisons between a HA and a CI, it seems as if there is much of a difference. For me, I have 6% speech discrimination which is practically nothing. I do hear quite a lot of noises with the HAs, and if it's a sound I've heard before I can usually identify it again. But frankly, I'm quite deaf so I think the most I get out of my HAs is just being aware of my environment rather than total silence. But that's never bothered me. I'm grateful to get whatever I do get out of my HAs.
 
Daredevel7 said:
So very little speech discrimination is enough to get a CI then? Is there any moderate/severe moderate people out there who have very little speech discrimination with the hearing aids?

As for me, prior to getting the implant, I had nearly zero speech discrimination. After a month, I am still getting used to the implant but I can definitely hear constants (just need to relearn which is which) and can even hear the sh!! I NEVER heard the sh before!!! I keep saying sh randomly to myself. (Yes I talk to myself)
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according to the audi who fit me with my first pair of hearing aids, there are people with moderate to severe hearing loss who do have a great deal of difficulty with speech discrimination.

having said that, i know of a few cases where people with severe loss (70 dB or greater across all frequencies) qualified for a ci based on their poor speech discrimination.
 
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