What is the Cochlear Implant (CI)?

​

When asked about how you would imagine a CI looks like, a lot of responds would be an invisible implant without a physically visual body. Well, you are partially correct and also incorrect.  

​

Basically, a CI consists of an (1) internal components and (2) an external components. The external components took the appearance of a behind-the-ear (BTE) sound processor and a magnetic round transmitter that is attached to the wearer’s head.

​

Now you already know how the CI would look like. How about its function? Since it does look like a standard BTE hearing aids, does it mean it works the same way as the hearing aid?

​

The answer is, no. Even though both the hearing aid’s BTE and the CI’s BTE look the same, the way they work is totally different. A hearing aids function is to amplify the surrounding sound energy by a certain amount in compensating the degree of losses of a person’s hearing. However, a CI core  function is more onto transmitting the sound energy that was no longer accessible by the damaged cochlear hair cells via a man-made electrode array. In understanding this better, a simplified explanation would be as below:  

​

The process of hearing with a CI will start with the external CI components. Firstly, the surrounding sound energy is captured and encoded into digital information by the (1) BTE sound processor. Then, this digitized information will be transmitted from the outside of a person head via a (3) transmitter into the head via a (4) receiver through the radio signal. Then, the radio signal will be decoded into electrical signal by the (5) implant receiver. Apart from receiving and decoding the radio signal, the implant receiver also needs to determine on how much electrical current should be sent to the (7) electrode array and which electrodes on the array that will be stimulated. The amount of electrical current determines the loudness of a sound signal whereas the position of the stimulated electrodes determines the sound pitch! The stimulated electrode array will transmit the electrical signal to the brain to be interpreted as the sound.

​

At Tune, we have yet to provide any service and treatment on CI, but if you are interested with this option, we are happy to help you in getting in touch with the right professional, hospital or organization.