Health IT, Devices & Diagnostics

Aussie firm cuts ‘off-air’ time for cochlear implant recipients

Cochlear Ltd., an Australian company specializing in implants and other devices for people with hearing loss, has developed a product used in a space shared by clinicians, health IT professionals and high-tech audio wizards.

ear trumpet

Cochlear Ltd., an Australian company specializing in implants and other devices for people with hearing loss, has developed a product used in a space shared by clinicians, health IT professionals and high-tech audio wizards.

Hearing aids amplify sounds to a level where they can be detected by damaged ears, but cochlear implants send signals directly to the auditory nerve, signals which the brain then recognizes as sounds, according to the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).

Cochlear Link is a cloud-based technology platform that stores patients’ unique hearing profile (also known as a “MAP”) by which an external device known as a “sound processor” sends signals to the electrodes in the implant that has been surgically placed in a hard-of-hearing person’s inner ear, or cochlea.

“Imagine a graphic equalizer,” explained David Hackshall, CIO of Cochlear, comparing the sound processor to a device used to adjust the bass and treble levels of a stereo or musical instrument. “Each of the implant’s electrodes has a number of channels we set at high, low or mid points tailored to the individual; no two are typically the same.”

Problems have occurred when the recipient of an implant has his or her sound processor lost or damaged. According to Hackshall, patients can face long waits to get into a clinic for a new MAP to be made and then it often takes between three and 31 days for the clinic to send this information to Cochlear so company technicians can adjust the setting on the recipient’s replacement processor.

Periods such as this, when recipients lose the use of their implants, have become known as “off the air” time.

“At that particular point, you are without sound and you went instantly from being able to hear and understand the world around you to silence,” Hackshall said. “With Cochlear Link, we can now send you a replacement sound processor with your MAP customized to you within 24 hours.”

Cochlear is an international company with its headquarters at Macquarie University in Sydney and a global workforce of about 2,800 people. Its U.S. operations are based in Centennial, Colorado, and Cochlear Link has been available to consumers here since last September.

Hackshall said he will be discussing “where to go next” with Cochlear Link at a global research symposium being held in Sydney Oct. 31-Nov. 3.

Among the topics will be how to use gamification therapy to help implant recipients learn how to hear again, but in a new way.

An implant doesn’t bring back normal hearing, according to the NICDC, whose website states that hearing through a cochlear implant is different and takes time to learn or relearn.

Hackshall agreed.

“It takes a bit of an adjustment because you’re hearing a digital sound and you have to train your brain to process it,” he said. “So, you need to do therapy, you need to do exercises.

“Cochlear has identified this as an area where there is a lot of potential,” Hackshall added. “You have to create a challenge for the recipient instead of a chore. You make it fun.”

Photo: Flickr user Eknath Gomphotherium

Shares0
Shares0