Electrical stimulation components are unlocking future of hearing technology
From: Medical Design - 11/01/2012 - page 14
By: Claude Jolly

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications
Disorders, approximately 17% of adults have some form of hearing loss,
translating to about 36 million people. 

Additionally, 2 or 3 out of every 1,000 babies are born deaf or
hard-of-hearing. The Hearing Health Foundation estimates that 20% of the US
population aged 12 years and older has hearing difficulties severe enough to
impact communication. 

Today's cochlear implant (CI) systems are generations away from their early
predecessors, but the central idea remains the same—directly stimulate the
nerve fibers of the cochlea so that the auditory nerve can transmit these
signals to the brain. Components of a CI include the externally worn audio
processor, which houses the software that captures sound and encodes it.
These pulses are transmitted through the skin to the internal implant, where
pulses are sent through an electrode array that has been surgically threaded
into the tiny cochlea. From there, the auditory nerve picks up the signals
and sends them to the brain where they are interpreted as sound. 

A major trend in CI surgery today is to minimize trauma to the cochlea when
the electrode portion of the cochlear implant is introduced, so that residual
structure and capability is preserved. In the US, CIs are indicated for
bilaterally deaf children as young as 1 year old. Children born today may
expect to live well into their 80s and beyond, which has implications
surrounding how a surgery is performed. Conceivably, a child implanted with a
CI may face multiple surgeries in his or her lifetime, if for no other reason
than technology advancement. 

Read the entire article at:
http://medicaldesign.com/Electrical-stimulation-components-are-unlocking-future-hearing-technology/

Links:
Quick Statistics 
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/Pages/quick.aspx

Hearing Loss Statistics
http://hearinghealthfoundation.org/85