For people with poor high frequency hearing who retain good hearing at low frequencies, a new cochlear implant can provide the needed stimulation to improve that high frequency hearing.
“There is a very specific subset of people who quality for this type of implant,” said Maroun Semaan, MD, an otolaryngologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. “Their hearing is too good for the old conventional cochlear implant but, at the same time, they have enough hearing loss that they don’t benefit from a hearing aid.”
In March 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the implant based on clinical trial data of 50 patients implanted with the new device that showed significant improvements in hearing high-frequency sounds, such as speech.