The hearing and cochlear implant debate! Share your opinion!

Bottesini said:
Those figures in honesty don't count for someone deafened in adulthood. It is misleading. A whole different story.
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From what I've experienced so far, the differences between a late deafened person and a born deaf person with a CI:
1) There is a big delay due to getting used to the sounds. I've been mapped 4 times and haven't technically been adjusted yet!
2) Therapy is a MUST since I cannot tell the audiologist how to change the mapping because I have no idea if it sounds right or wrong. My AVT, after only 2 sessions, already knows how I am hearing "wrong". Certain sounds tests distinguish mistakes that I make due to the fact that I cannot tell the difference between 2 sounds not because I don't know what the sounds are.

Interesting stuff!
 
Bottesini said:
Those figures in honesty don't count for someone deafened in adulthood. It is misleading. A whole different story.
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Not necessarily. I know several people who were born profoundly deaf and received a CI as an adult. None of them could speak, but after having AVT, they learned how to speak well and can now use the telephone. It isn't a different story. It's reality. It may not be reality for all, but it most definitely is for some.
 
This thread reminds me of an old saying: If there are 2 physicians, you have 3 opinions.
 
Daredevel7 said:
From what I've experienced so far, the differences between a late deafened person and a born deaf person with a CI:
1) There is a big delay due to getting used to the sounds. I've been mapped 4 times and haven't technically been adjusted yet!
2) Therapy is a MUST since I cannot tell the audiologist how to change the mapping because I have no idea if it sounds right or wrong. My AVT, after only 2 sessions, already knows how I am hearing "wrong". Certain sounds tests distinguish mistakes that I make due to the fact that I cannot tell the difference between 2 sounds not because I don't know what the sounds are.

Interesting stuff!
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That is exactly the point I wanted to make. If you want it and want to work so hard it is great.

I just wish they would stop pushing it as a magical cure for the born deaf.

It works better on late deafened.
 
deafskeptic said:
Not me. I notice that parents who implant children with CIs tend to be pro-oral. I thought Fair Jour was an expectation to the rule but I was wrong.

CIs can go wrong. Witness Travis' (smithr) problems with his CI.
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You weren't wrong. My daughter's language will always be ASL, having a CI will not change that. She is just adding more, not losing anything.
 
4. How can louder not be better? Youd hear alot more faint sounds that you never heard before! Some people have the gain on their HAs down so far they barely even hear their own voice and talk too loud! I have this problem if I don't wear HAs! Take someone with normal hearing and stuff earplugs, he will complain that everything is too quiet. Why should it be any different for HOH people?

Simple. Louder = distortion

5. There's an ongoing debate on how much residual hearing a person can have before getting CI. I remember years ago you had to have none left to qualify for CIs, especially since CI would destroy your residual hearing anyway. Also CI technology was primitive and crude and inferior to HAs if HAs worked for you. CIs were seen as a last restort if no HA gave any aided hearing, your loss would be greater than what an audiometer could go as well.

Research has proven time and time again that people with a greater amount of residual hearing benefit significantly from a CI.
 
Hear Again said:
4. How can louder not be better? Youd hear alot more faint sounds that you never heard before! Some people have the gain on their HAs down so far they barely even hear their own voice and talk too loud! I have this problem if I don't wear HAs! Take someone with normal hearing and stuff earplugs, he will complain that everything is too quiet. Why should it be any different for HOH people?

Simple. Louder = distortion

5. There's an ongoing debate on how much residual hearing a person can have before getting CI. I remember years ago you had to have none left to qualify for CIs, especially since CI would destroy your residual hearing anyway. Also CI technology was primitive and crude and inferior to HAs if HAs worked for you. CIs were seen as a last restort if no HA gave any aided hearing, your loss would be greater than what an audiometer could go as well.

Research has proven time and time again that people with a greater amount of residual hearing benefit significantly from a CI.
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That is why there is specific criteria. I just don't understand why people think that surgeons are out there to ruin the residual hearing of these barely hard of hearing people so that they can do a surgery that the CI Center LOSES money on....weird
 
Regarding #4: How can louder not be better?

Louder can be better in some cases when trying to hear something at a higher volume (e.g. if someone tells me they hear a bird chirping and I can't hear it at volume 2, but I can at 4 -- but it sounds odd!) but I will say that loudness does absolutely nothing to help with speech - the clarity is still not there. That's the difference between being severe/profoundly deaf and someone who has hearing in the 30 db range where all the speech tones are.
 
It's no different than what hearing aid manufacturers do.

Where do you get the idea that CI companies manipulate research?
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Not exactly Hear Again. The promotion of CIs seems to be a lot more aggressive now, especially since they've loosened the qualifications of who can get one now. Yes, there is a significent population for whom the CI is the ONLY option. Nothing wrong with marketing the CI to them.
However, it does seem like they are promoted as THE ANSWER. I'm not sure if you remember in the 90's how they were promoting digital aids as THE ANSWER to everyone's hearing woes. They were marketing them in the same way that CIs are being marketed now. I remember back then, they implied that digital aids were THE ANSWER. Guess what? People are still wearing analogs. Matter of fact, research has shown that when an aid is labeled digital, people report better perfomance from it, even if it's just an analog aid!
It also seems like.....there's a huge difference between health care decisions. Back in the 90's, it seemed to be more about professional driven health care....the doc or audi would say " I think you've maxed out your hearing aids...maybe it's now time for CI."
It's still somewhat present, but now it seems to be more about "having the Detrol (CI) conversation with your doc....you know?
I never said CI companies manipulate research....it's just that having CI companies say that CIs are better then HA, is like the company that manufactures Tylenol saying that Tylenol is better then Advil or whatever the competiting product is.
 
There's a lot of talk about loosing up the qualifications of the CI. I don't particularly understand the negativity towards this. Pretend the CI works well for 95% of the population (which it does, but some people don't believe it). When I say works well, I mean they eventually get more than half of speech discrimination. When they started the CI, it was new and experimental, so of course they had restrictions and would only give it to those who had nothing or minimal hearing to lose. After 20 years, and seeing the tremendous success, wouldn't it make sense for them to loosen up and still give the CI to those who DO have residual hearing but have little to no speech discrimination? Hearing at 30dB at a certain frequency doesn't mean ANYTHING if you hear everything else at 90dB.

Obviously I am against giving the CI to someone who has enough residual hearing to have relatively good speech discrimination. The problem is when someone says "Oh I have a hearing loss with the range of 50-90dB and I got the CI". Some people get into an uproar, but they interpreted the dB loss as moderate and think they have good enough hearing. That's no better than someone assuming that a HoH can hear everything.
 
Hear Again said:
4. How can louder not be better? Youd hear alot more faint sounds that you never heard before! Some people have the gain on their HAs down so far they barely even hear their own voice and talk too loud! I have this problem if I don't wear HAs! Take someone with normal hearing and stuff earplugs, he will complain that everything is too quiet. Why should it be any different for HOH people?

Simple. Louder = distortion

5. There's an ongoing debate on how much residual hearing a person can have before getting CI. I remember years ago you had to have none left to qualify for CIs, especially since CI would destroy your residual hearing anyway. Also CI technology was primitive and crude and inferior to HAs if HAs worked for you. CIs were seen as a last restort if no HA gave any aided hearing, your loss would be greater than what an audiometer could go as well.

Research has proven time and time again that people with a greater amount of residual hearing benefit significantly from a CI.
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Because of that, I dont think I would be a good candidate for a CI since I dont have much residual hearing.

As for the comments about not benefiting from residual hearing...despite with the little I have, I rely on it heavily when in non signing environments. Some deaf people do use what little residual hearing they have in several situations.
 
shel90 said:
As for the comments about not benefiting from residual hearing...despite with the little I have, I rely on it heavily when in non signing environments. Some deaf people do use what little residual hearing they have in several situations.
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Some deaf people are better at using their residual hearing than others.

Furthermore, some deaf people don't know sign or have the ability to lipread which may explain why they choose to receive a CI.
 
Daredevel7 said:
There's a lot of talk about loosing up the qualifications of the CI. I don't particularly understand the negativity towards this. Pretend the CI works well for 95% of the population (which it does, but some people don't believe it). When I say works well, I mean they eventually get more than half of speech discrimination. When they started the CI, it was new and experimental, so of course they had restrictions and would only give it to those who had nothing or minimal hearing to lose. After 20 years, and seeing the tremendous success, wouldn't it make sense for them to loosen up and still give the CI to those who DO have residual hearing but have little to no speech discrimination? Hearing at 30dB at a certain frequency doesn't mean ANYTHING if you hear everything else at 90dB.

Obviously I am against giving the CI to someone who has enough residual hearing to have relatively good speech discrimination. The problem is when someone says "Oh I have a hearing loss with the range of 50-90dB and I got the CI". Some people get into an uproar, but they interpreted the dB loss as moderate and think they have good enough hearing. That's no better than someone assuming that a HoH can hear everything.
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:gpost:
 
deafdyke said:
Not exactly Hear Again. The promotion of CIs seems to be a lot more aggressive now, especially since they've loosened the qualifications of who can get one now.
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DD,

I don't understand why you think doctors are promoting CIs to everyone who walks in the door because that simply isn't true.

For starters, in order for someone to discuss CIs, they need to visit a qualified CI center. Most ENTs are unfamiliar with CIs and don't know the criteria for being a candidate. My former ENT recommended that I have an MEI due to continuing hearing loss. After I saw a specialist, I was told that I didn't have enough residual hearing. When I asked about a CI (since he was also a CI surgeon), I was told that I had "a little too much" residual hearing since my aided speech discrimination at the time was 30-40%.

If you want to believe that CI companies hype their products to everyone, go ahead. I happen to disagree. It has been said that over 20,000 adults and children qualify for CIs, but do not have them because they are unaware of the technology.

As for loosening CI criteria, what's the difference? Research has proven that people with greater amounts of residual hearing benefit from a CI. Why do you have a problem with that? If they choose to receive a CI, how does that negatively affect you?
 
There's a lot of talk about loosing up the qualifications of the CI. I don't particularly understand the negativity towards this.
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Well say that the CI really is ALL THAT. Where should the dividing line be between the person who is obviously qualified for it, vs someone who has bought into the thinking that "it's the newest and latest thing" so I GOTTA have it?
Again, I have NO BEEF whatsoever, with people who are totally right off the bat canidates or who have maxed out their amplification.
But I'm just curious.....where's the dividing line? This really isn't say for example akin to the switch from earhorns to hearing aids.
I think people need to be careful about thinking that the "latest technology" is always the best. Yes, some people have experianced some amazing sucess with CI (ie they go from little to no or some speech discrimination to being functionally hoh)but that's led some people to think that it overcomes ALL the inequalities of being hoh.
You know.......does anyone know if sales of hearing aids for profound losses have gone down in recent years?
It's hard to say since there's no hard data out there with which to really back up the debate.
It's very possible that a lot of the people who are ambigious canidates for CI, are the AG Bell- Auditory Verbal types who need the latest hearing aid or whatever.
It doesn't effect me, directly, but it does mean that if more people opt for CI then that means highr health insurance premieums etc.
 
so ppl who think its the latest fad that will solve their probs are going to be told by their surgeon and ci audi that you need to do therapy etc and if they still get it and don't get what they were wanting cuz they don't do therapy and such then it's their own fault for proceeding with getting a CI
 
deafdyke said:
It's very possible that a lot of the people who are ambigious canidates for CI, are the AG Bell- Auditory Verbal types who need the latest hearing aid or whatever.
It doesn't effect me, directly, but it does mean that if more people opt for CI then that means highr health insurance premieums etc.
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That's quite an unfair generalization to make, DD. I have bilateral CIs and I'm not an AG Bell AVT type.

Besides, what's wrong with advocating for AVT? When someone opts to have a CI, speech understanding should be the main focus if a person is able to use their hearing to that extent.

Where do you get the idea that CIs result in higher health insurance premiums? The more people who receive CIs, the less health insurance will cost due to there no longer being a need for ENT services, hearing aid programming and hearing tests.

CI candidates put a great deal of research into deciding to be implanted. Sooner or later, the reality of what it means to be a CI candidate (i.e. the strongest amplification no longer helps) hits home and they mourn the loss of their hearing.

If anyone opts for a CI because it's "the latest and greatest technology," they are a very small minority of CI candidates.
 
AliciaM said:
so ppl who think its the latest fad that will solve their probs are going to be told by their surgeon and ci audi that you need to do therapy etc and if they still get it and don't get what they were wanting cuz they don't do therapy and such then it's their own fault for proceeding with getting a CI
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:gpost:
 
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