Abstract
Modern auditory prostheses range from implants that impart mechanical energy to the cochlea via the ossicular chain or bypassing a damaged ossicular chain via the round window (round window implants) to implants that, bypassing severely damaged inner ear cells, electrically stimulate the auditory nerve within the cochlea (cochlear implants). Other auditory prosthesis are suitable for electrical stimulation of the central auditory pathways: the auditory brainstem implants which, bypassing a damaged cochlea and auditory nerve auditory, stimulate the brainstem nuclei, and the inferior colliculus implant or auditory midbrain implant which, bypassing damaged brainstem nuclei stimulate the inferior colliculus.
With the refinements in implant technology, patient selection criteria for the various different implant devices need to be periodically reconsidered with a view to obtaining increasingly high levels of speech recognition for the different etiologies. We review the latest outcomes, obtained with various implant devices, and propose guidelines for device selection for different etiologies of deafness.
