[Preliminary clinical research of cochlear implantation in elderly and pre-elderly patients with profound hearing loss]

Abstract

Objective: To explore the safety and efficacy of cochlear implantation among elderly patients with severe to profound hearing loss.

Methods: Eight pre-elderly and elderly patients with an medium age of 58 years who suffered from bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss received cochlear implantation between November 2008 and November 2009. The patients' tolerance to implant surgery and the occurrence of complications were observed. Three months after switch-on, aided threshold and speech performance were measured.

Results: The surgery was uneventful in all cases with normal intraoperative neural response telemetry elicited. Three months after switch-on, average aided threshold across speech frequencies was 35 - 50 dB HL measured in sound field with warble tone. The results of speech audiometry showed large variation between individuals. Some patients achieved good performance in monosyllable recognition test, disyllables threshold test and sentences recognition test under both bubble noise and quiet conditions.

Conclusions: Pre-elderly and elderly patients can endure a state of general anesthesia for cochlear surgery without complications. Cochlear implant can provide reconstruction of speech recognition capabilities for elderly patients suffering from severe to profound hearing loss. Cochlear implantation can improve the quality of life of elderly patients with hearing loss.