Electric-Acoustic Stimulation of the Auditory System: A Review of the First Decade

Abstract

Electric-acoustic stimulation (EAS) was developed for individuals with a profound hearing loss in the high frequencies and a substantial residual low-frequency hearing (LFH). For this group of candidates, conventional hearing aids often neither provided sufficient amplification nor were they considered suitable for cochlear implantation due to the possible destruction of residual hearing capabilities. With EAS, combining electric stimulation with an ipsilateral acoustic stimulation, preservation of residual LFH and the development of a new speech processor uniting both strategies became essential. Over the last years, EAS has developed further and advanced in electrode design and surgery techniques. This paper summarizes the history of EAS and acknowledges the tremendous work of the many research groups who contributed to the success of EAS.

Investigation of a matrix sentence test in noise: Reproducibility and discrimination function in cochlear implant patients

“…The continuing success of cochlear implants (CIs) in recent years (Patrick et al, 2006;Hochmair et al, 2006) and the consequent expansion of the range of indications for recipients of such devices (Laszig et al, 2004;Lenarz et al, 2009;Arndt et al, 2011;von Ilberg et al, 2011) call for improved audiometric measuring techniques in order to ensure adequate quality of understanding speech when using the CIs. CI recipients need life-long support to maintain their CI system postimplant.…”

Implantes cocleares: aspectos tecnológicos e papel socioeconômico

“…A inserção do conjunto na rampa timpânica deve causar o menor dano possível às estruturas internas da cóclea para não prejudicar a audição residual do paciente (Carlson et al, 2012;Ilberg et al, 2011). No caso de ossificação da cóclea, fica dificultada a inserção dos eletrodos até a profundidade necessária para estimular regiões relativas a sons de baixa frequência.…”

“…Neste caso, o processador de áudio deve desempenhar tanto as funções de geração de código de pulsos quanto as etapas presentes em próteses auditivas convencionais, como síntese de áudio e cancelamento de realimentação, além dos blocos de redução de ruído, presentes em todos os tipos de próteses auditivas. A estimulação eletroacústica possibilita que pacientes sejam beneficiados tanto pela audição via estimulação elétrica quanto pela audição natural remanescente, que lhe garante melhor qualidade (Ilberg et al, 2011). Percepção musical (Kong et al, 2005) e reconhecimento de fala na presença de ruído (Kiefer et al, 2005) são relatados como melhores em pacientes com estimulação eletroacústica do que com apenas elétrica.…”

“…Em pacientes cuja orelha interna encontra-se altamente danificada, resultando em perda auditiva severa ou profunda, próteses convencionais podem ser incapazes de restaurar a capacidade auditiva, limitando ou impossibilitando a fala e a linguagem (Cruz et al, 2012;Ilberg et al, 2011).…”

Behavioral frequency discrimination ability of partially deafened cats using cochlear implants

“…As selection criteria for CI recipients have eased, more patients with preserved low frequency hearing have received CIs (for review see Turner et al, 2008). Several clinical studies report improvement of overall hearing performance of subjects with residual hearing in one ear (possibly with a hearing aid) in addition to ICES in the other, sometimes referred to as bimodal hearing (Von Ilberg et al, 2011, Mok et al, 2006, Firszt et al, 2008, Ching et al, 2006). For example, Dorman et al (2007) showed an increase of 20% in performance of patients with CI in one ear and a hearing aid in another on word and sentence recognition tasks when electric stimulation was added (EAS).…”