A 22-channel cochlear implant was placed in a deaf patient who had fallen from a height of 3m and was diagnosed as having bilateral temporal bone fracture by high resolution CT. The round window through which the electrode leads should have been inserted could not be found because the membranous portion of the round window had become a bony wall. It was necessary to drill through it before the 22 electrodes could be inserted into the cochlea.
Three weeks after surgery rehabilitation was started. The vowel and consonant confusion tests and speech tracking test were useful to assess the recovery of hearing ability. The results of speech sentence comprehension were satisfactory, and this cochlear implant also made possible the psychological recovery of this patient.