Born deaf, 4-yr-old starts hearing with cochlear implant

Chandigarh, January 2

Advertisement

A four-year-old boy, who was born deaf, has been able to listen with a cochlear implant surgery and is learning to speak.

Dr Sanjay Khanna, senior consultant and Head, Department of ENT, and Dr Lokesh Mittal, associate consultant, Paras Specialty Hospital, Panchkula, said the child would undergo speech therapy for the next two years and would learn to speak, thereby leading a normal life.

Dr Khanna said it was the first cochlear implant surgery of Panchkula. “Cochlear implant is a gold standard surgery for children who are profoundly deaf. The earliest this device is implanted, the sooner a child can hear and speak,” he said.

Dr Khanna said under the surgical procedure of 3-4 hours, implant was placed inside the inner ear of the patient. After this implantation, a child had to undergo speech therapy session for at least two years. With the help of this procedure, deaf and dumb children could learn to hear and speak.

About cochlear implant

Cochlear implant is a device that provides sound signals from damaged or non-functioning part of inner ear to the brain. It has two parts. The first part is surgically implanted into bone surrounding ear, which consists of a receiver stimulator that decodes and sends an electrical signal to the brain. The second part is an outside device, which is made up of a microphone or receiver, speech processor and an antenna. This part receives the sound, converts it into an electrical signal and sends it to the inside part of the cochlear implant. — TNS