faire_jour

So answer. Realistically, how many children have you seen have an internal failure and NOT get reimplanted?

Deafness

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Frisky Feline

i have seen a several people who did not get reimplanted. This is reality .

shel90

I lost track. I dont keep a journal. Been in the teaching field for over 10 years.

This is a big world out there. I have said that I didnt know how often that happens else where in my earlier post.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

shel90

Right..not just children but in adults too. Could be due to several factors and each case is probably due to different reasons.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

faire_jour

I mean how is that possible. Failures are rare, and not reimplanting is even more rare.

shel90

Maybe they are rare in your experience.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

faire_jour

The 11 year survival rate for implants is over 91%. That means failures are far from commonplace.

shel90

Fine, dont believe me.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

faire_jour

It is simply math. Over 90% don't fail, so only 10% ever need replaced. So, even if a full half are children and half of them don't get reimplanted (which seems way too high to me), we are talking about 2.5%. That would make it uncommon.

Phi4Sius

shel90- Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with faire_jour. Certainly not knocking your experience, but the math doesn't lie. Even with your experience, you should be able to come up with a rough number - we're not asking for complete stats here. Just estimates. 20? 30? 60? Of what percentage of these were issues with: static electricity, the implant failing, or just not working upon implantation, indicating a malfunctioning internal unit? How many of these were failures due to the child not going in for regular mappings as required? During conversations with these children (and perhaps their parents as well) they would certainly express why the implant didn't work along with why they didn't get implanted, no, considering your profession?

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deafdude1

In defense of cochlear implants(see? im not against) the failure may not be the CI itself but the inner ear of the person. If you have few or no hair cells, HAs won't work and CI attempts to bypass the missing hair cells. However if anything else in the inner ear is damaged or missing, a CI won't work either and reimplanting the CI won't help either. You need a healthy cochlea, auditory nerve and all the other parts. Only your hair cells can be missing for a CI to work.

I am still reading around on why HAs and CI does not work for everyone, im sure there's many other reasons. Everyone is different to put things in a nutshell. Ive read of people with CI for whom the internal CI works fine and all the electrodes are good, yet that person doesn't benefit from CI. This means other factors besides missing hair cells plays into this. If that person was a CI candidate, it means no one can predict for whom CI will work and for whom CI won't work.

If CI was working great and stopped working and the fault was in the internal CI, then yes it makes sense to be reimplanted. They can test your internal CI and all the electrodes. I know a person who's internal CI was still working but he stopped recieving benefit from CI. He was told that either his brain rejected the CI or something in his inner ear(other than hair cells) stopped working. They gave him a choice of having the CI removed and reimplanted with a different CI but did not have high hopes of a 2nd CI working either. His other choice was to give up all his residual hearing in the other ear and hope the CI works. If it doesn't work, he will be 100% deaf in both ears. His choice was to stop wearing the CI processor for a year then try again in the hopes his brain would accept the CI after a one year break. If this didn't work then he would have ruled out the brain being the problem and the problem would be something in his inner ear.

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SteveESP52

Interesting the original poster to that forum has only posted one time. The site does not appear to have a lot of activity but I'm not knocking that. There is not enough information in the single post to really understand the persons history to agree or disagree with his comments.

Please remember what the hearing loss must be to become a CI candidate. Their hearing has to be pretty much gone and where they don't receive much benefit with a PROPERLY fitted HA.

I have to wonder how people gauge success of a CI? Are they looking for instant gratification like most everything else these days or are they willing to work with it to make it as good as it can be. Remember how much these things cost and that it likely it could take years to get them as good as they can be. If your ability to hear and descriminate sound isn't improving over time, find another center for a second or thrid opinion before throwing that $35,000 processor on the shelf. Challenge the audiologist and work with them to change the various settings. I know that if I run certain settings on my CI, I can get it to sound very robotic like some say but I can also make changes to the speed for me and get it to sound extremely smooth and natural. The key piece is that the changes are not that extreme but are changes.

I've been to 20-25 mapping sessions since getting these 3 years ago and absolutely every time, I try something new. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but I have to try different things. I've got them working quite well at 100% (L) and 97% (R) speech scores but I'm going back in a couple weeks to give it another try to see if I can make some aspects even better.


One of the best decissions I have made is to start going to the Hearing Loss Association Cochlear Implant Meetings. They have brought in Audiologists who spend the day programming CI's and have talked about what you should take with you to the mapping sessions. They have also brought in Tecear to talk about assistive listening devices and silent call but probably the best part of these meetings are being able to sit down with other CI recepients and try and understand what works for them so I can see if it can help me.

I hope every one of you have been able to do the same.

deafdyke

Exactly!!!!! And even with speech benifit that varies tremondously..........from hoh listneing levels to being able to hear some speech.........Not everyone acheives hoh listening levels....and that really annoys me the way they are marketed to sound like anyone with a CI can acheive high listening levels.
Shel, you're right....results from CIs are akin to the results from HAs, in that some people can acheive hoh listening levels but others can only acheive some increased speech/sound perception and everyhting in between.

shel90

Right..that's my whole point. So, I am curious..why do people overalyze it?

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

faire_jour

It is a big decision. I think it good to be well informed, and even better to follow up and do appropriate therapy.

shel90

No..not that. Why do people in general overanalyze a deaf person's capabilities based on CIs? Either the person can hear or cant hear. I wasnt referring to parents doing research before making the decision.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

sallylou

Good question! That happens here based on hearing aids and CI. People post their audiograms or ask others to interpret their audiograms. It's like an obsession to compare and contrast a deaf person's hearing with "normal" hearing. And to compare and contrast the difference between hearing with HAs versus CI. I tune out and skip over it. Being a little deaf is like being a little pregnant. You can't hear! The rest is just details.

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Happy holidays!

shel90

That just drives me nuts..it is what goes on in the head and heart that matters not the ears.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

sallylou

I guess that this is how some people cope with deafness. It seems like over-intellectualizing the situation. Over-intellectualizing is a less than healthy coping skill. I'm not a therapist. Where is our resident counselor?

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Happy holidays!

rick48

There is no need to be so defensive especially since you were the one who said that you know of "numerous" children who have device failures and are not reimplanted.

FJ has a right to ask you to state the basis upon which you make such a statement given the low device failure rate to begin with. Additionally, in the past you have stated that although you teach kids who no longer wear their implants, you did not think it was part of your job to inquire as to why they were no longer wearing their implants. Thus, how would you know whether the device even failed to begin with or they just chose not to wear their implant.

You should also be upfront and state that you work in a non-oral educational setting and that many of your students come to the program because, for whatever reason, they were not successful either in the mainstream or in an oral deaf education program. Much like a teacher at an oral school saying the opposite that she knows of no student who was not reimplanted after a device failure, your experiences are to a certain extent skewed by the environment in which you teach.

The number of device failures is indeed rare and while there does not appear to be any figures on the percentage of reimplantion after device failure, it is fair to say that the reimplant decision is probably directly related to the success, however defined, the individual was experiencing with their implant prior to its failure.

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deafdude1

I found this comment in another forum. This person respects late deafened adults who make their own choice for CI, but does not believe CI being forced on prelingual culturally Deaf. Maybe the fact those who were forced a CI could be a big reason they stopped using them? Even adults could be "forced" to get CI due to all the hype and pressure by their hearing family, friends and audiologist. After they get CI, they realise they did not need CI to be happy.

http://www.alldeaf.com/1447006-post41.html

I also explained in this post that CI failures may be the ear, not the CI itself.

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rockdrummer

I don't think anyone is under the impression that there is a 100% success rate for CI's. I have never seen anyone suggest that nor have I ever heard anyone in the medical community or the manufactures of CI's make that claim. Granted the numbers and how success is measured may be questionable, however never have I heard of anyone claiming 100% success rates.

rick48

The person's spelling of the word "cochlear" evidences a lack of maturity, the content of the post evidences a lack of understanding of the cochlear implant decision. As a result, it warrants no further discussion.

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rick48

Neither have I.

The only people who keep raising that issue are those who seem to be opposed to cochlear implants.

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sallylou

We don't have the spelling and grammar police at AD.

Even if the failure rate is 1%, when you're part of the 1%, it sucks to be you. That's why you have to consider the risk.

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Happy holidays!

Jiro

sure there are. There's bott and I

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Jiro

ah.... rick48.... good ole' bitter man

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sallylou

Jiro, you and Bott specialize in snark. I say that in a fond way because I like you both.

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Happy holidays!

Jiro

back

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Bottesini

But you must admit we are both champions of the English language and not afraid to tell anyone off!!!

(You thought I was gone, didn't you?)

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