Eleanor Isabel

I’ve been digging around a little (thank heavens for Google!) for information about Cochlear Implants as well as Med El and Cochlear Americas (aka Cochlear Ltd.), our two choices for the Cochlear Implant (CI). So far, I’ve been concentrating on Med El, since that’s the one we are leaning towards.

Opus-2 speech processor and transmitter coil

Opus-2 and remote tuner

The actual implant (wire goes through a small hole in the skull and is wound inside the cochlea, the receiver floats on the skull under the skin)

The Opus-2 was just approved by the FDA in April. It’s compact and fairly resilient, from the demo unit we’ve seen. It also doesn’t have any external controls. You use the remote to change programs, volume, etc. Good for children and for adjusting things easily without having to remove the processor. The actual implant is also thinner than the Cochlear Americas implant that we saw and only uses a single wire with the ground built into the receiver coil, whereas the CA one has the electrode wire and a separate ground wire. We were told that we will probably get the Opus-1 and a spot on the waiting list and a voucher for an Opus-2 upgrade when they’re available. Here are other Opus-2 wearable options.

The Opus-1 speech processor

A young child with (what looks like) a Cochlear Americas Nucleus device.

Here’s the FDA info for the Cochlear Americas Nucleus Freedom. The Nucleus was bulkier, but seemed a little more resilient. Plus, it is water resistant (small splashes and sweat) and has a rechargeable battery pack already available. The Opus-2’s rechargeable pack isn’t out yet. They also had a few different clips and configurations. I doubt we’ll have to worry much about moisture, but durability is pretty important (especially at 18 months old, and especially at $8k-a-pop!). Another upside to CA is that they have been an established company for longer than Med El (first trial in 1982, commercially in 1985 vs. 1989/1994 for Med El…that info is a bit outdated, though). They also have more implantees, from what I hear. Here are a few other Nucleus Freedom wearable options. It looks like CA also has more options for their processor and you can buy things like batteries, coils, and accessories online (I wonder if we could get a discount through Drs, though?).

I came across this demo page. The 8-channel demo gives a good idea of what speech may sound like through the implant. The demos look like they are from 1997-1999, so it is extremely likely that modern implants sound much better, seeing as how they were released within the past few years and technology has advanced significantly since then (I bought a top-of-the-line 350MHz desktop computer around 1998, current desktops are up to 3+GHz, and current thin notebooks are over 2.6GHz).

I also came across this weblog of a young lady who had a CI done a little while back. I haven’t read through it all, but it looks interesting and has a few pictures (for us visual people).

The play day I mentioned was part of the HearSay group of the Dallas Cochlear Implant Program. I am still very impressed with that little 6-year-old’s abilities.

Please leave comments with more resources and/or opinions. This process isn’t quite like buying a car, TV, or cell phone, so the more information we have, the better.