2022 Volume 68 Issue 4 Pages 243-250
With regard to changes over time (at 3 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years after surgery) in speech perception in adults with a cochlear implant, we examined the threshold for wearing an implant device, and the ability to hear monosyllables, words, and phrases, i.e. the ability to perceive speech, to determine the extent of long term changes, the appropriate time point to perform the tests after surgery as an initial evaluation, and whether changes are found as a result of changes in the speech processor. In the threshold for device implantation, the median at 3 months after surgery was already 26 dB, and there was no subsequent change observed. In terms of the ability to hear words and phrases, a significant increase was observed from 3 months (median values of 80% and 87.5%, respectively) to 1 year (median values of 85% and 94.5%, respectively), after which there was almost no change. With regard to monosyllables also, there was almost no change from 1 to 10 years, and therefore, it was considered appropriate to evaluate the effect of cochlear implants at 1 year after surgery. With regard to phrases, the median value was over 90% after 1 year, and considering the ceiling effect of tests, for long-term evaluations in future, we believe that evaluations should be performed using different test methods, such as the hearing in noise test.
