Clinical Course of an Auditory-Visually Impaired Patient with Cochlear Implant

Abstract

Since 1991 we have performed 22 channel cochlear implants in 8 profoundly deaf patients. One patient also had severe visual impairment. Auditory training course and speech comprehension scores are reported for this 53-year-old woman who underwent 22-channel cochlear implant surgery. Using the cochlear implant alone, the open-set sentence scores achieved 80-84%, while vowel confusion study and consonants confusion study scored 85% and 37.5%, respectively. Vowel recoginition abilities and environmental sound recognition in daily life was sufficient with this implant, whereas, consonant recognition abilities were insufficient. Moreover, it took approximately 2years to reach the open-set level.
Accordingly, it is suggested that even auditory-visually impaired patients are indicated for cochlear implant.