“Many deaf people spend a lot of time looking at cutting edge science hoping for a new exciting treatments. We sometimes forget that one very successful treatment has been around since the 1980s.”
So says “Brian”, a fellow sufferer of sensorineural hearing loss, who follows HLJ from Britain. Due to personal and professional reasons he’s asked to remain anonymous.
He offers up his thoughts on Cochlear Implants (CI) and the ongoing research into the holy grail, a Fully Internal Cochlear Implant (FICI), and why it will represent a game changing breakthrough.
Sound Quality
“There have been significant improvements in CI sound quality over the past 25 years. But it’s important to note that CIs are not a replacement for natural hearing. That said, the sound they reproduce is getting better and better. People with the latest CI’s are scoring in the mid 80 percent range on word recognition tests. Put another way, a CI wearer can now correctly identify over 80 words out of a hundred.”
Vanity
“Traditionally, appearance is a major area of concern for most CI users. Not only do most CIs have a big hook around the ear, you have to have the CI bolted to your skull. But what if all that external hardware could be miniaturized, and completely implanted inside the skull and out of sight?”
FICI – The Holy Grail
“The first thing to note is that FICIs exist, in the laboratory at least. Back in 2014, researchers at MIT together with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary announced they had produced a new microchip that could become the foundation of an FICI. The battery could be charged wirelessly.
But since then there’s been very little news.
The main reason for this is because it’s incredibly hard thing to do technically. Batteries, and how to recharge them are one major stumbling block, along with figuring out how to get an internal microphone to work as well as an external one. Those are only just a couple of the hurdles. But the race is still very much on and whomever wins will clean up in the CI market
In effect, researchers are trying to replicate a cochlea, a remarkable organ the size of a pea. The more you look into challenges of making a good FICI the more you admire natural hearing.”
AN UPDATE: Envoy Medical now says it has developed a FICA that is now pending approval from the FDA. Their press release:
WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Envoy Medical® Corporation, a hearing health company focused on providing innovative technologies across the hearing loss spectrum, today announced that its fully implanted Acclaim® cochlear implant was granted the Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unlike existing traditional cochlear implants that are partially implanted and have an external microphone and processor, if approved by the FDA, the Acclaim would be the first-of-its-kind cochlear implant without any external components to offer unique benefits to users and hopefully increase cochlear implant adoption and user compliance across the globe.
