Your Trusted Clinic in Spring, TX for Cochlear Hearing Implants
In most cases, hearing aids provide the best solution to overcoming hearing challenges. However, some people simply don’t get enough help from hearing aids to enjoy the improved quality of life that comes from better hearing.
For those cases, hearing care professionals look to electronic implants as an alternative solution.
Cochlear implants, whether in one ear (unilateral) or both ears (bilateral), are designed to improve hearing clarity, elevate speech, and enhance language-processing capabilities in individuals of all ages.
North Houston Hearing Solutions provides cochlear implant technology as an advanced solution to improve communication and hearing clarity for those who need a little help.
Electronic implant technology has been around since the 1970s, but most people don’t fully understand what it is and how it helps improve hearing.
What Is a Cochlear Implant?
The cochlea, located in the inner ear, has hair cells that receive sound from the outer and middle ear. These hair cells change sound into electronic signals and then transmit them to the brain, where they are interpreted as meaningful sound via the auditory nerve.
Damage to the hair cells causes permanent sensorineural hearing loss, which can be helped by hearing aids. But when damage in the cochlea is extensive or sound does not make it to the inner ear due to conductive hearing loss issues, a cochlear implant can bypass the damaged sound pathway to deliver the electrical impulses (sound signals) to the auditory nerve.
There are two components to an electronic implant or cochlear implant:
1. A processing unit worn behind the ear, similar in appearance to a behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aid
2. An internal electrode that requires cochlear implant surgery to be inserted into the cochlea
The BTE processor has a microphone that receives the sounds around you, processes them into sound signals, and then transmits them to the implanted electrode.
Cochlear implants were cutting-edge technology in the 1970s when they first received FDA approval, but digital technology has greatly enhanced the capabilities of today’s cochlear implants, which far exceed what was possible with early electronic implants.
Whether used with hearing aids or as an alternative solution, cochlear implants are an advanced tool designed to help adults and children overcome severe hearing challenges when hearing aids alone are not enough.
