Abstract
Current status of the cochlear prosthesis is overviewed. More than 190 patients underwent single channel implant at the House Ear Institute. Multichannel electrode system was also implanted in many patients in other institutes. Neither of single and multichannel system could have provided a sophisticated hearing for speech communication so far.
However, many patients could discriminate simple words or environmental sounds. Other benefits of the current implant are reduction of tinnitus and improvement of lip reading. Postimplant rehabilitation still plays an important role in improvement of word discrimination.
Problems to be solved lie in 2 major categories; 1) a method to evaluate functioning cochlear nerve for electrical stimulation. 2) improvement of a stimulator which produces an electronic signal for better frequency coding.
