Seniors and Cochlear Implants: Results and Other Considerations - 2

By Cheryl Heppner

Editor: Here's Cheryl's report on a workshop that addresses Seniors and Cochlear Implants. The presenters were Dr. John K. Niparko of Johns Hopkins University and
Donna L. Sorkin, M.A., Vice President for Consumer Affairs at Cochlear Americas.

You are welcome to republish this information, but please credit NVRC. See the credit at the end of this article.

This is part two of two parts

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Donna Sorkin's Presentation

Aural Rehabilitation

- Other factors can also influence how well someone will do with a cochlear implant. These include motivation, the number of hours the device is used, and opportunities for practice in conversation. Some people improve quickly, others take several years to maximize their improvement.

- With progressive hearing loss, seniors may be without hearing for years or decades. They may need assistance to learn to recognize speech and environmental sounds again.

- For music, simple sounds come back first, and then more complex ones. Cochlear implant companies are now emphasizing how to help improve the experience with music.

- Some insurers provide coverage for adult rehabilitation. Medicare requires that it must be determined as a medical necessity.

- Some cochlear implant clinics do not offer adult rehabilitation, so you must find a private provider. You can also try self-directed aural rehabilitation. Listen to books on tape while reading them, starting with easy books. Listen to radio and television. Begin in quiet, then in one on one situations and gradually add more speakers.

- Many people are anxious about using a telephone. Quality of the auditory signal may be relative to the phone, speaker (accent, pace, clarity), use of direct connection, acoustic coupling, telecoil use, speakerphone, and familiarity with the speaker and topic.

- Having aural rehabilitation with a group can help you improve overall communication and coping skills.

- Manufacturers have aural rehabilitation products for professionals to use that include training exercises for adults.

- Cochlear's "Sound and Beyond" uses self-directed, interactive software that allows you to proceed at your own pace. There are four levels of difficulty. The exercises have sentences (with a choice of a man's or woman's voice), environmental sounds, and music. The package costs $290 and can be used to train with any cochlear implant.

Public Policy Activities
Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) has been involved in many advocacy activities related to cochlear implants. These include:

- Expanding Medicare coverage to allow people with more hearing to get a cochlear implant.

- Assisting efforts to increase payment to hospitals being underpaid for cochlear implant services for Medicare patients.

- Convincing California State Employee Insurance and Utah insurers Intermountain Health Care and Blue Cross to drop their exclusion of cochlear implants.

The keys have been to demonstrate the benefit of cochlear implants with data and personal stories, appeal to the sense of humanity, and to couple cost effectiveness arguments with information on long term health and life benefits.

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