There has long been a number of ways to provide better hearing to those who experience varying degrees of loss in their hearing function. Hearing aids in many models have been available for decades and have improved greatly thanks to the advances in miniaturization and technology in general. The cochlear implant option has also been available for a number of years and recently has been more widely accepted.

While the procedure to provide a patient with cochlear implants was first introduced in the mid 1960s, the use of these implants did not really become widespread until the early 1990s. In fact, there was, and still is, some resistance to these devices from the deaf community, which actually first reacted with protests to this new approach to providing better hearing to those with profound hearing loss and deafness.

These days, most of the opposition to the idea of a cochlear implant has died down considerably and there is a fair level of acceptance for cochlear implants by the deaf community. The main reason for the resistance was a fear that the deep and unique culture of the deaf community would be destroyed if such hearing aid technology became widespread.

Now some years later, however, it seems the fear of extinguishing the strong and proud culture of the profoundly deaf was mostly unfounded. Today, cochlear implants are no longer seen as a threat to that lifestyle but instead, as an alternative for better hearing.

Cochlear implants are also often referred to as an “internal hearing aid.” But it should be made clear that cochlear implants are not the equivalent of the hearing aid products known as implantable hearing aids. The main difference is that the cochlear implants utilize electricity to directly stimulate nerves in the auditory system while the implantable hearing devices are essentially exactly the same as a standard hearing aid, simply implanted “permanently.”

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Health & Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.