Cochlear Implants :: Hearing Deafness Auditory Essays

Cochlear ImplantsAs the life expectancy of the general population continues to increase, so has the number of people experiencing varying types of perceptual damage. One area of perceptual loss that is gaining more and more actualisation is auditory functioning. The number of individuals experiencing a post-lingual hearing loss, or hearing loss after the acquisition of language, is increasing among the older adults in our society. This increase has facilitated a need for a means of managing such a loss of functioning. The conclave of people affected by hearing loss is by no means strictly limited to older adults. Pre-lingually deaf children and adults, as tumefy as, postlingually deafened individuals can benefit from the technology that is currently being highly-developed and refined for the management of hearing loss. The conventional hearing aid is credibly the most common device pictured when thinking in wrong of managing hearing loss. However, another option that may not be as well known is the cochlear ingraft.The cochlear implant is a relatively new option in the management of hearing loss. Cochlear implants exaggerate sound, code sound into an electrical signal, and send those signals into the auditory nerve. The signal because travels to the auditory brainstem and onward to the temporal lobe of the brain for interpretation. The cochlear implant system consists of native and impertinent components. The internal components include a receiver, an internal magnet, and an electrode array. During a surgical procedure, a space is made in the mastoid bone behind the ear. This space holds the internal magnet and receiver. The electrode array is then placed in contact with the nerve endings in the cochlea. After nidation surgery, the skin and hair around the incision are allowed to heal for close five weeks.Then the patient is fitted with the external components of the implant. These components include a microphone, an external transmitter coil, c ords, and a speech processor. The microphone is attached to the ear by means of an earhook. The microphone picks up sound waves and sends them to the transmitter for convertion into an electrical signal. The transmitter coil is held in place against the patients head by means of an external magnet that is attracted to the internal magnet. A cord connects the microphone to the transmitter coil. another(prenominal) cord then connects the microphone to the speech processor. The speech processor contains a software program that determines how sound waves will be coded and transformed into electrical impulses.