A good analogy of HA, unilateral CI and bilateral CI for hearing people

The following words was observed on Facebook (written by my fellow CI-bloggers) this morning.

A CI blog-friend of mine, Valerie, asked for advice on Facebook:

“Our school will have visitors out next week, how do I explain my cochlear implants and deafness without them treating me differently????

Then another CI blog-friend of mine, “the mad dasher”, Sam Spritzer, offered Valerie a very good answer, and I feel compelled to share this with my readers:

“

Sam Spritzer at 1:17am December 5

If I were you, I wouldn’t even worry about them treating you differently. You can tell them that CIs are the 21st century version of HAs, only better. And if you have to use an analogy, CIs to HAs are like color tv to b&w tvs. And a bi-lateral CIer is HDTV to standard color tv. Good luck!”

This was the best analogy I have seen to date, in order to explain hearing technology to hearing people. Also he is right in saying not to worry about being treated differently. It’s easy to say, of course, but there’s truth in it. I can vouch for that… Think about something else. Avoid or avert those “worry” thoughts…

So, I just want to rewrite the analogy a little bit:

Imagine hearing aids are like Black&White TV. Then CI is like color TV.

If unilateral CI is like color TV, then bilateral CI is like HDTV.

In the Queue of my life, no 44 – (Part 5 of 7)

Secretary of State Sundsbø: – The responsibility lies on Health South-East .

Secretary of State, Dagfinn Sundsbø (SP, Centrum Party) in the Department for Health and Care says to Din Hørsel taht the department have been briefed about the situation for CI-surgeries in the region of Health South-East. – There has been concerns for the difficult situation at Rikshospitalet. We’ve been informed that illness among staff has been a large contributor to the currently difficult situation. But we strongly believe Rikshospitalet will be able to turn this around and that they are doing whatever is possible in order to maintain the set number of CI-surgeries for 2008.

He tells us that the development of the situation are closely monitored via follow-up meeting throughout the fall of 2008. – Health South-East has a clear understanding and acceptance of the demand set by the department as for how many surgeries shall be performed this year, he says.

According to the State Secretary, the Rikshospitalet are working at a project for increasing the surgery capacity by means of eliminating the needs for putting CI-patients into beds post-procedurally. – That project has a high priority and is expected to be implemented some time in October. The Otolaryngology department has drafted a plan for treating more patients. The plan is being finalized and is currently being studied by the hospital management, he says.

Sundsbø says that the reason of the unfortunate situation that has unveiled, is caused by a number of unfortunate coincidences. The Otolaryngology section had a heavy burden of illness, and also had trouble recruiting new staff for compensation. Reduced number of beds available to the section will be compensated by the establishment of the “one-day treatment” project, he says to Din Hørsel. – We’ve also been informed that another problem area is the pre-qualifying CI-examination capacity, Sundsbø tells.

108 patients are currently waiting for CI at Rikshospitalet. [my comment: at current rate the 108th patient has to wait more than 2 years]

Decoding sounds from Cochlear Implants

In this informative video you can supposedly get an idea of what kind of work my brain will have to do in order to decode those artificial electronic impulses into meaningful sounds….

I wouldn’t know, if this is accurate or even if it’s true, as I haven’t been implanted yet, but would love to get comments from my CI-blog friends on this posting!

A great what-is-Cochlear-Implant video

Here is a very good informative video from the Med El Cochlear Implant-brand based in Austria.

This video shows very good what a Cochlear Implant actually does for the hearing.
It shows how a Cochlear Implant works in terms of bringing artificial sound to the brain.

Thanks to Berose and her blog on which she made me aware of the existence of this video.

My story got published

A few weeks back the latest issue of the membership magazine “Din Hørsel” (”Your Hearing”) was sent out to all members of the Norwegian Association for HoH. In this issue is an interview with none other than yours truly

I’m proud to be a small part of the fight for better medical care for people who need CI in Norway.

So far I have received no official responses to this. I keep hoping it’ll tickle into the minds of the people in positions to do something about this difficult situation that hundreds of people like me are enduring here in Norway.

I will of course translate this article to English, but you have to be patient with me, since I will be attending a school reunion this coming weekend.

I’ll be back! 

Research Supporting Bilateral Cochlear Implantation

Someone heard me!

And I got hold of what I needed! A 5 pages long list of research that supports the notion that everybody who needs it should have bilateral CI!

I got in contact with Amy Brown from the Let Them Hear Foundation Advocacy program. She provided me with a huge list called “Research Supporting Bilateral Cochlear Implantation“. It is updated and very much valid for the ongoing battle we have these days in Norway for allowing adults get their CI number two on an as needed basis.

Amy wrote me the following, which I happily honor, given the fact that she gave me the precious list in the first place
Thanks to Amy and Sheri Byrne from the Let Them Hear Foundation.

Hi Ulf,
Thank you for your question.  This is a proprietary LTHF Advocacy Program work document.  We use it specifically to support our appeals.  I am happy to share it with individuals such as yourself as needed, but it is not intended for public consumption.  We continually update and revise this list to include the latest most compelling peer reviewed medical literature.  It is meant always to be a work in transition. If you know of anyone who needs access to this information, you are welcome to share my contact information with them.  I will follow-up immediately.

Amy Henderson Brown, J.D.
Director
Let Them Hear Foundation Advocacy Program
149 Commonwealth Drive
Suite 1014
Menlo Park, CA 94025

If anyone need this information, I’d be happy to provide her e-mail address. All you have to do is ask. I won’t publish it here because that could lead to her getting more e-mail spam. Better to keep it personal.

Bilateral CI research findings

I will post my findings on the issue of bilateral CI on my blog. Hopefully it helps someone else too…

I want to collect the data concerning this debate, in order to get an oversight of what the medical community discover, as well as what they are writing and thinking about this issue.

Papers found in PubMed:

Patients fitted with one (CI) versus two (CI+CI) cochlear implants, and those fitted with one implant who retain a hearing aid in the non-implanted ear (CI+HA), were compared using the speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing scale (SSQ) (Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). The CI+CI profile yielded significantly higher ability ratings than the CI profile in the spatial hearing domain, and on most aspects of other qualities of hearing (segregation, naturalness, and listening effort). A subset of patients completed the SSQ prior to implantation, and the CI+CI profile showed consistently greater improvement than the CI profile across all domains. Patients in the CI+HA group self-rated no differently from the CI group, post-implant. Measured speech perception and localization performance showed some parallels with the self-rating outcomes. Overall, a unilateral CI provided significant benefit across most hearing functions reflected in the SSQ. Bilateral implantation offered further benefit across a substantial range of those functions.
(Link to more information about this paper)

Speech perception tests were performed preoperatively before the second implantation and at 3 months postoperatively. RESULTS: Results revealed significant improvement in the second implanted ear and in the bilateral condition, despite time between implantations or length of deafness; however, age of first-side implantation was a contributing factor to second ear outcome in the pediatric population. CONCLUSION: Sequential bilateral implantation leads to significantly better speech understanding. On average, patients improved, despite length of deafness, time between implants, or age at implantation.
(Link to more information about this paper)

The average group results in this study showed significantly greater benefit on words and sentences in quiet and localization for listeners using two cochlear implants over those using only one cochlear implant. One explanation of this result might be that the same information from both sides are combined, which results in a better representation of the stimulus. A second explanation might be that CICI allow for the transfer of different neural information from two damaged peripheral auditory systems leading to different patterns of information summating centrally resulting in enhanced speech perception. A future study using similar methodology to the current one will have to be conducted to determine if listeners with two cochlear implants are able to perform better than listeners with one cochlear implant in noise.
(Link to more information about this paper)

The Let Them Hear Foundation have done their own research:

Despite many insurers’ (in the US; my comment) continued erroneous assertions to the contrary, bilateral cochlear implantation is NOT an experimental or investigational procedure, and is medically necessary.  Bilateral cochlear implantation in children has been an accepted, mainstream medical practice since 1998.  Over 3000 have been performed, including over 1600 on children.

Several studies have shown that there is a vast improvement in sound localization ability in patients with bilateral cochlear implants.  In particular, the group of subjects who received a significant amount of improvement when bilaterally implanted were those who were initially implanted at a very early age, as Andrew was.  In September 2005, an international consortium of cochlear implant specialists published an article in the widely respected journal “Acta Oto-Laryngologica” formally recommending that all children with permanent bilateral profound hearing losses receive bilateral cochlear implants.  A recent publication by industry-leading otologist Dr. Robert Peters stated that:

Provision of binaural hearing should be considered the standard of care for hearing-impaired patients whenever it can be provided without significant risks. In severe to profoundly hearing impaired individuals, this can only be provided with bilateral cochlear implantation when hearing aids are inadequate. In carefully selected candidates, the benefits derived are significant, the surgical procedures well tolerated, and negative effects infrequent in both children and adults.

A second recent paper by well-known communications disorder specialist Dr. Ruth Litovsky concluded that: Bilateral CIs can offer a combination of benefits that include better ear effects, binaural summation/redundancy effects and binaural unmasking. These effects have been illustrated in numerous patients world-wide; continued work in this field will no doubt lead to further improvements and increases in the size of each of these effects, for adults and for children.Please refer to the following publications for additional information.

Another medical benefit of bilateral cochlear implantation is that it has been shown to improve speech recognition in noisy environments.  It is expected that once that a patient’s hearing with the second cochlear implant in place is maximized, they will notice a significant improvement in understanding speech in noisy environments.  Comprehending speech amidst background noise occurs commonly in real-life situations, especially in classroom settings and learning environments, at the dinner table, or while talking in a car or on a plane.  Please refer to the following studies for more details:
read more from their conclusions here…..

R.I.P Sten Harris

Sten Harris died yesterday, after a long time of illness. Sten worked at Rikshospitalet for many years, operating most of the CI-operations up until now. He was a true CI-pioneer in Norway.

His illness and following death is probably one of the reasons that Rikshospitalet has problems with the capacity of performing CI-operations these days. Add that to the budgetary cuts made recently, and it is not difficult to understand that it will be hard to find a replacement.

Sten Harris last act as the leading medical surgeon at the Otolaryngology-departement at Rikshospitalet was to object to the severe budget cut by resigning from his position in protest.

He also appears in the news-video where I also appeared (video is posted permanently on the top left side of this blog).

He has also through the years been an advocate for bilateral-CI and other operations that helped many people to a better life. He participated in debates to the last (art.), and was involved in crucial research over the years, thus driving the development and understanding of CI and related subjects forward: “Researchers Ona Boe Wie and Sten Harris from the University of Oslo presented findings on the effect of bilateral cochlear implantation on spoken language skills in children from five months to 18 months old.”.

I did not get to meet him, but from what I’m told, he was a fantastic person. And I googled him and found numerous examples of his dedication to the cause of hearing/deafness.

Sten Harris, you will be remembered by many, many people. This is my post-mortem salute to you.

May you Rest In Peace

Audio depth perception (and pitch)

Thanks to all friends who responded about my question of wether to fight for bilateral from the start-line or do one by one…

The decision has now been made I want stereo!!! I want depth perception and I want my pitch back….

This image is a good analogy of the sound-problem I have these days. Try to focus on this image for an hour or so, and then you can slightly imagine what it is like for me to concentrate on speech that is “out of focus” for my brain…

Also thanks to Michael Chorost for his (previous posts and) article in “The Journal of Life Sciences”: “Living in stereo” on the subject.

Since I’m already on the path of thanking people, I’d like to include Amy Shah for writing an article about the importance of pitch in speech comprehension: Pitch Perception and Cochlear Implants. This article illuminated a black hole in my understanding of what is happening to my sense of hearing… (My question was: I can still hear somewhat, but why has it become so difficult to understand speech? Her article explained that to me…)

Try this for testing your Pitch perception ability…

It’s all about perception…

Feel like I’m walking in Sahara

This shot was made with my brand new Olympus 570-UZ camera (it has a built-in panorama function, as you can see). I’m very pleased with it

What I’m not so pleased with, is that I went to Rikshospitalet today to find out how much longer I have to wait. Last time I asked, in December 2007, I was number 60. Today I was number 57…

So… things are not going very fast there for the time being. How RH is going to operate 100 CI’s this year is a mystery to me. Especially since they managed to shorten the list with about 3 in the first 4 months of 2008.

I was having hopes that maybe something would happen this summer or this fall, but now I think it will be 2009 before I can call myself a bionic man…

Can someone build robots who can do the CI-procedure on an assembly line, please?

The rings of Saturn – simultaneous bilateral CI-surgery?

The Sahara desert, where I was recently, is like a window to the universe. I was excited to be able to see Saturn with my very own eyes through a telescope.  Fantastic! Just like the picture above.

The thought just came to me; In space there is no sound. Sound carries through air. No air in space, hence no sound.

Which brings me to this: I’ve been thinking about getting simultaneous bilateral CI-surgery, and how that would be for a few weeks… Living with absolutely no sound…

I’m sure the hospital won’t do it based on my request alone. Do I want to do it if I could? For the sake of my recovery, I want both my ears to be done with. I want to do both surgeries in one session. My only concern would be my son in the silent weeks before sound activation. I would be able to communicate though, I can read his lips pretty decent… It would just be a little slow…

I’m thinking my brain and recovery would benefit from doing both surgeries, both activations, and training both ears equally. Both my ears are very similarly damaged.

I have a feeling the hospital’s policy (for several reasons) is one ear at a time. If that’s the case, I’m pondering wether it’s worth pursuing the prospect of having both ears done simultaneously… (I risk pissing them off, you know…)

For that to be feasible, I would need help from a lawyer, which I think I have through HLF. I would have several arguments, one of them being economical. Other arguments would be the time aspect of going through two single operations that would take 1 – 2 years extra depending on the waiting time… I’m not keen on waiting anymore…

Anyone have opinions on simultaneous bilateral CI-surgeries or experienced simultaneous CI-surgery? I’d be happy to hear from you….

My un-sound condition – pre CI era

I want to make this list in order to remind myself what it was like before I got the CI (2007/2008). Maybe I run into problems post-surgery post-sound activation and need a reminder of how I reacted to sounds before the operation(s). It’s a time capsule to myself…

Here’s a similar post I wrote January this year…

These are the sounds that causes great stress, fatigue, even pain and vertigo in me these days… 

• All things mechanical like car engines, especially bigger engines like on buses and trucks.
• to many voices at the same time, especially if a little loud
• the clanking sound of ceramics against ceramics (dinner plates)
• my son at the top of his voice (vertigo)
• my mothers voice when louder
• children voices
• the vibration sounds from my computer, or maybe it’s one of the fans
• inside my car
• elevator music and “muzak” (because it’s too faint for me to grasp, or too noisy otherwise, my brain tries too hard)
• the hiss from the steamer on a cappuccino-machine
• if everything else is quiet, the refrigerator noise is picked up by my HA and that sound wears me down
• the air-condition in office buildings and alike
• stiletto-heels and other hard shoe soles on hard surfaces
• vacuum-cleaner and other domestic appliances
• music    
• any sounds in a room with bad acoustics (naked floors, walls and ceiling echoing sounds)
• any background sound when I’m having a conversation

These are the sounds I can’t hear at all anymore even with hearing aids on

• Birds singing (could hear them faintly as a kid)
• My cat meowing
• My bedside alarm clock
• the fire alarm
• the doorbell
• running water
• rain falling on rooftop
• someone yelling my name from a distance or another room

My letter to the Norwegian Treasury Department

The text has been translated and changed some, compared to the original letter in Norwegian.

My status and reason for writing this letter:

I have been hard of hearing all my life, and at the same time I have been working like everybody else at 100% in the IT-industry for as long as I could. Never learned sign-language. I am now deaf and I am not able to work. I wait for a bilateral CI-operation.

My general health is very much influenced by tinnitus and hyperacusis. It means I can’t stand certain sounds or loud sound. This phenomenon is examined closer in the article ”Recruitment”.

There are significant mental health aspects to my condition too, and that also affects everybody close to me.

It has been a several year long process to acknowledge the fact that I am now deaf. In this process I have made many experiences with “including work life” (aka link to NAV about IA (norwegian), follow this link for more information in English.), NAV and the healthcare system. Some positive, of course…

Where I am today

Despite a strong inner will, and a desire to be part of the working life I am hindered by the fact that I have to wait for the CI-operations that can give back my ability to function in everyday life again. I have IT-skills that are extremely sought for in the IT-industry today. I would be hired “on-the-spot” by one of the largest telecom-companies in the world; Telenor, to work with projects in the top management group for the Norwegian Business Division. It is a frustrating place to be right now, waiting for those CI’s.

My main point:

We have a serious socioeconomic flaw in our bureaucratic systems in Norway in 2008. Work disabled individuals like me, do not get adequate medical treatment that ensures our society continued productivity from same individual. I use myself as an example:

Minister of Health in Norway guarantees CI-operations for 2008

This is a translated, abridged and reworked version of a Norwegian article found on HLF’s website.

Guarantees CI-operations and screening of infants.

Norwegian Minister of Health, Sylvia Brustad gurantees that screening of hearing on infants and CI-operations will be carried out, regardless of the cutbacks at Rikshopitalet.

In response to MP Berit Brørby (Labour Party) the Minister of Health guarantees that the operations and screening will be carried out according to the assignments the government has given Rikshospitalet. The fate of the Otolaryngology-department at Rikshospitalet has been uncertain for some time now, and the hospital was ready to implement huge and devastating cuts to the said department in February this year. Now, however, the Norwegian Department for Health and Care and Health South-East (Rikshospitalets superior administrative body) agrees in their demands to the Rikshospitalet.

Priority on Hearing-operations

“I can ensure the representative Berit Brørby that the demands set in the assigments for Rikshopitalet stands from my side. There are also no changes in the function Rikshopitalet has in this area nationwide in regards to operating and following up on children. Health South-East has now also reassured the government that the given assignments will be prioritized independent from the demands for meeting the budget for 2008.”

“The Health department has also repeated a precision to Health South-East that the goal for 100 CI-operations for adults is per definition for new patients”, writes the Minister of Health in her response to representative Brørby.

The Minister has since the summer of 2006 said that the total number of nationwide CI-operations on new adult patients shall be escalated up to the medically and statistically founded annual estimate of 200.

The waiting time for CI-operations for adults is now between three to four years.

The Minister also wrote about the all-important screening process of infants in order to start early with children with suspected hearing damage. (not directly related to the CI-issue, but nevertheless good news for the development of creating a good medical service to all things related to hearing).

My comment:

In short this means that despite the hard times for Rikshospitalet budget-wise, the CI-operations are now guaranteed. The hospital will have to find other ways to save money than to bleed the Otolaryngology-department to near-death… Good news indeed

The cost of a CI-operation?

Can anyone tell me the cost of a CI-operation? Either for one ear, or simultaneously both ears?

I would like to “hear” (pun intended ) from everyone who has knowledge about it…

On a personal note…

My writing is a bit slow these days, I hit a mental bump in the road caused by these budget cuts I was interviewed about…

I’m sleepless in Oslo again, and thought it would be a nice opportunity for letting the world know I’m still here…. And finally browse through some old photos of mine…. Time to air them

Easter holiday is just around the corner, and I intend to spend my time at our Swedish farm by the lake to get my inner strength back. I will hopefully complete a restoration of a sturdy American built Mercury outboard-engine that has been broken and lying around for years.
Also I will take up a new hobby; kayaking! And with that another too long ignored interest of mine will be much more interesting: photography…

I imagine a lot of photo-opportunities just waits there for me to capture… Have plans to take it up again… Hope to show some of them off here on my blog in near future! These two were taken last year with my Nokia cell-phone, imagine what I could do with a proper camera….

And good wishes (and a little jealousy     ) goes to these recently CI-activated blogger’s! Pay them a visit and leave a happy Easter note and let them know we’re CI-happy for them! Some of them has posted their activation videos, check it out!

Sam the brave-blade-Runner, Steve the Ruminator, Michael “ReBuilt” Chorost, Abbie “Contradica”, Jennifer “the butterfly” and Jeff “metalhead”.

 

With this last picture I took last year around Easter time I bid thee good night and I wish all my readers a happy Easter holiday!

Technorati Tags: cost of CI,CI,cochlear implant,sweden,kayaking,photography

Captioned video of me on national news 27.02.2008

Having trouble embedding Overstream into wordpress…

Pls follow this link:

http://www.overstream.net/swf/player/oplx?oid=toliustbimmh&noplay=1

Status update II

Where to begin??? Well, since my last “Status update from Nov. 6th 2007” (where everything is still valid, I won’t repeat everything) some things has changed.

Overall everything is a little bit worse. Tinnitus is loud, perhaps more constant, fatigue is a bit more severe. I get tired a lot faster from a lot less sound. Headaches are frequent.
It’s gotten to the point where I can’t stand the sound of pretty much anything. Even faint fan-noise is uncomfortable. I’m pretty much intolerable to any sound now.
Less than a year ago I was able to listen to music, now I have my hearing aids turned off more than they are on… I rely more and more on my lip-reading skills…

Bilateral CI-operation is still my number one priority. Other than that I continue to take care of my 7 year old son, my fantastic girlfriend (so grateful to have you in my life, honey!!!), family and myself as best as I can. My psychologist has helped me to be able to be comfortable with the fact that there’s not much more I can do. So instead of feeling lost in a black hole, filled with despair, I relax as much as I can, think positive as much as I can and so on. But I have to admit that some times I get the blues and wished that CI-operation could be in the past instead of in the future. But then again, that’s something to look forward to, right?

I am now at about number 60 on the waiting-list for the CI-screening. About 4 months ago I was at the 100th place. If that pace holds, it means about 10 patients a month, which means I could be looking for an appointment at around 6 months from now… Say august… I certainly hope so!!! I really shouldn’t complain, because I’m a lucky guy, really, who live in Norway and these kind of operations are funded by our health-care system… But things can always be better! If not for me, than maybe for the future post-linguistic-deaf person who need CI…

It will be interesting to see how the hospital will respond to my request for doing both ears simultaneously…. It’s not at all standard procedure, I know. It’s just that there’s really no alternative for me, so I might as well get both ears done at the same time…

I think the technology is ripe (Advanced Bionics Harmony with HiRes90K implants that can do 120 frequency bands), the surgery-techniques have developed and are pretty secure. Besides, operating one ear at a time is less cost-efficient than doing both at the same time. 300 000 NOK for one, and 500 000 NOK for two. That’s a whopping 20% saving! Or 100 000 NOK in plain numbers. Not to mention, my recovery will be over once and for all, and I can get back to the workforce sooner.

If the surgeries are done one at a time, I guess it will be almost 3 more years before I’ll get through it for good. In total that could be 6 years (!) of my life dominated by this CI-process…

The long walk…

If I also take into consideration the time I spent dealing with the fact that I slowly lost my hearing, I would have to add a few years to those 6 waiting for CI. I also struggled with work since 2002. I’m up to almost 10 years of my life!!! If everything had been optimized, it could have been as short as 2 maybe 3 years….  Something could have been done a lot better by the health-care system and by the governments…

I hope that I will be able to work and function even with one CI, but I know it will take more strain on me. I know how it is to be deaf on one ear, too (all those times with defect HA, no good battery etc. etc.). And remember, CI is not fixing my hearing to a 100%, but maybe 30% of perfect hearing. Those 30% is certainly a lot more than the 0,5% I have now…. In fact, it’s more than I ever had. All my life I had approximately 20% residue hearing… And if I get more sound from all over the frequency-chart, I will be a very happy normally functioning deaf man!

Other than my deafening, my knees are shot, I’m still waiting to hear from the hospital after the initial response that my request has been recorded and acknowledged… I’m not able to do any physically challenging things like running (forget it), ice or in-line skating, swimming(!) or long walks…  I’ve been gaining kilos all throughout this winter   More of me to love

Last night I finally got through the sleep-registration for detecting if I’m suffering from sleep apnea or just plain snoring… Something I decided needed to be ruled out as cause or bi-factor of my relentless fatigue…. Report is due in the mail sometime soon…

I have to thank all my blog-friends here: Thank you for sharing your experiences with the world, thank you for reading my blog and for encouraging words and support! I salute you all! You are indeed a well of good information!

Beautiful Butterfly Jen, Bionic Woman Abby, Running Crazy Sam, Michael is writing Chorost, Metal in his head Jeff, Great Cochlear Kids, Roberta from Italy (where’s your blog?) and many more!

Technorati Tags: postlinguistic deaf,cochlear implant,deaf

Localization with single CI

A fellow CI blogger, Michael Chorost, the author of “Rebuilt”, recently wrote about an experience concerning localization with his bilateral CI’s.
I just found this article in the Laryngoscope, to back up his findings with facts (all the way at the bottom ):

Localization by Postlingually Deafened Adults Fitted With a Single Cochlear Implant.

Laryngoscope. 118(1):145-151, January 2008.
Grantham, D Wesley PhD; Ricketts, Todd A. PhD; Ashmead, Daniel H. PhD; Labadie, Robert F. MD, PhD; Haynes, David S. MD

Abstract:
Objective: The main purpose of the study was to assess the ability of adults with unilateral cochlear implants to localize noise and speech signals in the horizontal plane.

Design: Six unilaterally implanted adults, all postlingually deafened and all fitted with MED-EL COMBI 40+ devices, were tested with a modified source identification task. Subjects were tested individually in an anechoic chamber, which contained an array of 43 numbered loudspeakers extending from -90[degrees] to +90[degrees] azimuth. On each trial, a 200 millisecond signal (either a noise burst or a speech sample) was presented from one of nine active loudspeakers, and the subject had to identify which source (from the 43 loudspeakers in the array) produced the signal.

Results: The relationship between source azimuth and response azimuth was characterized in terms of the adjusted constant error (C). C for three subjects was near chance (50.5[degrees]), whereas C for the remaining three subjects was significantly better than chance (35[degrees]-44[degrees]). By comparison, C for a group of normal-hearing listeners was 5.6[degrees]. For two of the three subjects who performed better than chance, monaural cues were determined to be the basis for their localization performance.

Conclusions: Some unilaterally implanted subjects can localize sounds at a better than chance level, apparently because they can learn to make use of subtle monaural cues based on frequency-dependent head-shadow effects. However, their performance is significantly poorer than that reported in previous studies of bilaterally implanted subjects, who are able to take advantage of binaural cues.

Captioning videos @ Overstream.net!

One of my CI-blogfriends, Abbie (Chronicles of a bionic woman), recently created this captioned CI-activation-video! For all of us who can’t understand spoken words very well, this is a gift!
Thank you Abbie, for letting us really participate in your experience. I learned a lot just from understanding what your audie says!!!

I saw this video uncaptioned, and didn’t get much from it, but that changed with the captioning!!!
For all of you who can hear, watch this, and remember that the ear Abbie is hearing on this video used to be deaf!!

I’d also like to give attention to the online-site that make captioning possible:

Overstream.net KUDOS!!!!

All you videobloggers and video-posting maniacs out there: please caption your videos if there are dialogue or even sign-language!
Make the world a richer place for all those who cannot hear well (or read sign-language)!

Technorati Tags: activation,ci,cochlear implant,captioning,captions,bionic,cyborg,hearing

Mentally drowned

Feeling of defeat is not a good feeling. Yesterday I attended my fathers 60th anniversary celebration and had some experiences with my hearing, or rather, the lack of hearing…

In the days up to his celebration yesterday, I had my son with me as I usually have every second (extended) weekend. This time I really had my hands full just dealing with my son. Not that he is raucous or anything. But my strengths go only to a certain level these days as demonstrated yesterday. I was supposed to bake a cake to the celebration, which I had voluntarily said I would bake. And I really wanted to do it, too. But the thing with my memory when fatigue hits is that it’s very similar to what happens when one has depression; performance is poor…

Luckily one of my brothers has gotten a knack for baking himself lately (as he is expecting his firstborn I guess his domestic consciousness arises   ) and the cake supply was sufficient.

Family members who hasn’t seen each others for a few years have a lot of catching up to do. Usually I try to arrive a little early, in order to be able to have a few words with whomever gets in before there’s too many. This time the weather was bad with blizzard so the drive took it’s time…

I sat down in the couch in the corner (always try to avoid getting any sounds behind me) and could not distinguish anything that was being said around the table.

Being happy to see relatives, wondering what had happened in their lives lately, I guess I tried too hard in the beginning. I quickly got tired from trying to follow conversations.

My blessed super girlfriend sees right through me, and could tell how tired I became just by looking at me. She made me aware to take a rest by turning my hearing aids off. But in a situation like that it’s nearly impossible to be able to rest, because my eyes do most of the work. I scan the room to see if anybody has their eyes directed on me, if they are talking to me. And every now and then someone does talk to me, and I turn on my HA and lean forward to try to decipher what they ask me…

After a few hours I was shot… Simply shot….  No strength left, and I was on my “emergency battery”. I told everyone that I had to leave because I didn’t feel good, and I gave them a quick explanation. I’m lucky to have a understanding family.

But the feeling of defeat was quite heavy. I felt forced to withdraw before I wanted to. I hated it. But it was necessary…

Yesterday it was clearer than I ever have experienced… It is very difficult to describe the state of my condition then, but I’ll give it a try:

If you take a whole pack of chewing gum and chew on it a whole day you know you are bound to have an aching jaw, ok? This was quite a similar sensation: the side of my head felt like it had been pounded by someone with boxing gloves for a few hours. Headaches (on the sides, around my temples), a sensation of dizziness and all sounds was kind of like painful. The sounds were unpleasant and felt intruding and annoying.

Today, as I write this, my head still has this ring in it. I write this now even before I have gotten out of my bed, because I know that not before long, I will be mentally too tired to conjure any text like I want to…

It’s a hellish place to be… Like being forcefully drowned mentally. And because the transition to deafness is so slow for me, I have fallen in some kind of trap, by not being able to protect (get CI) myself in time.

But here I am, and I have to take care of my son, myself, and keep on with my life. I know there is a solution for me up ahead with the CI, and it can’t come soon enough!!!

I have high hopes for 2008 to be the year when I either get word of when my first CI will be inserted…

I need it badly, as confirmed yesterday….

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