Hearing loss is caused by many different conditions and environmental factors, and before private hearing aids are fitted, it is essential that an audiologist tests your hearing to ensure that they are the right tool to help you hear again.
Many hearing aids help people to hear in a multitude of ways beyond amplification, with hearing loops, amplifiers, connectivity to audio devices through technologies such as Bluetooth and the ability to use other assisted listening devices alongside them, useful for different people in a range of circumstances.
One of the most unique hearing aids is the cochlear implant, in no small part because it works in a very different way to conventional hearing aids and can help people with severe hearing loss hear for the very first time.
Whilst the technology hearing aids use is very advanced and miniaturised, at their core they work by amplifying external sound for the ear to more easily process and convert into understandable speech.
Most of the technical advancements help to make them smaller and help to clear away external noise to make them more comfortable to use for long periods, but the central principle is relatively simple and far different from how cochlear implants work.
Unlike hearing aids, which whilst requiring a fitting appointment and tests do not require any procedures to use, cochlear implants are surgical implants, where a receiver and electrode are fitted under the skin and near the cochlea, where electrical impulses can be sent to the brain via the auditory nerve.
This implant connects to an external component, which resembles a behind-the-ear hearing aid that also connects to a circular sound processor held in place with a magnet.
The microphone picks up sounds and processes them similarly to a hearing aid. However, instead of processing and amplifying the sound through the ear directly, it bypasses the ear canal entirely and transmits the sound directly to the cochlear, where it can be processed.
Because hearing is not just about the ear itself but the sound-processing parts of the brain, a cochlear implant can bypass an ear that is not working properly.
The results will vary depending on the nature of hearing loss, its cause when the implant is fitted and the existing level of hearing.
The cochlear implant necessarily requires the cochlea to be in good enough function to transmit sounds via the auditory nerve to the auditory system in the brain and also requires that the auditory cortex is also functioning properly.
Both of these can degenerate over time due to hearing damage, or very quickly due to certain types of illness or injury.
Most notably, bacterial meningitis can seriously damage the inner ear and auditory nerve, meaning that a cochlear implant will not help to regain hearing.
As well as this, after meningitis-caused hearing loss, there is also a chance of ossification of the cochlea, which replaces the transmission fluid in the inner ear with bone. This means that a cochlear implant may not work depending on the level of damage.
However, cochlear implants can become a lifeline for people who lose their hearing but have a chance of saving it.
