Implanted devices can help deaf patients regain hearing

Release date: 2014-07-01

A revolutionary implant device regained a 17-year-old deaf actor. This technology will bring hope to those who cannot use traditional hearing aids.

Birmingham's 22-year-old actor Billy Coughlin used the technique at a local hospital in Birmingham in March this year. He said he can now hear the tiniest sounds, such as footsteps. After five or six years of deafness, he felt that he was back to normal.

The new device is the Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) Attract, replacing the old version of BAHA.

Traditional implants are implanted into the patient's brain using metal bolts that pass to the inner ear. Attract contains a small magnetic disk inserted under the ear. It can be connected to an electronic sound processor, which is about the size of a Bluetooth mobile phone hands-free headset and can be connected or removed as needed. The implanted device is barely visible without the receiver.

Billy's left ear lost most of his hearing because of infection. Earlier this year he was introduced to surgeon Matthew Trotter. Billy tested the device and tied the device to his ear with a headband. After a month, the magnetic disk was implanted into the ear by surgery, and his hearing was completely restored after the sound receiver was installed.

Dr. Trotter explained that the hearing loss they treated depends on the cause of deafness. BAHA is indicated for patients with deafness in the external auditory canal and middle ear disease, usually due to infection or surgery. Generally, traditional hearing aids cannot help these people because the sound cannot be transmitted to the inner ear.

It should be noted that the device is not a cochlear implant, so it is not suitable for patients with inner ear disease.

Implant surgery takes about 40 minutes under general anesthesia, the surgical incision is about 2 inches, and the implant needs to be fixed to the bone about a few inches. The magnet is attached to the place where the screw is sewn to the flap. The skin takes two weeks to heal, and the bone tissue and the screw can fuse together in a month.

Source: Kexun Medical Network

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