I: The Cochlea Implant (Cl) supply is the method of choice for rehabilitation of post-lingual
deaf patients. Better hearing and good speech intelligibility is expected. In fact
is the real benefit of a CI quite variable caused by a lot of predictors. The evaluation
of the effectiveness of the cochlear implant rehabilitation programme should be evaluated
for a long period of time.
M: In a retrospective study success of CI-rehabilitation has been evaluated of all
post-lingually deaf or severe hearing impairment patients (n = 265; age: 6 – 95J.),
who received a CI at ENT-hospital, University Kiel, regardless of genesis, diagnosis
and comorbidity. The post-operative audiological after-care has been analysed during
10/2011 to 11/2015. The success of rehabilitation has been evaluated with the Kiel-CI-Profiles
for adults from first fit to 7 years. Speech intelligibility in quiet using Freiburg
monosyllable test has been evaluated at 50, 60, 70 und 80 dB and in noise of 65 dB
with the adaptive Oldenburg sentence test. After first fit all tests took place after
1, 3, 6, 9 month, 1, 1,5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 years.
R: In median the speech intelligibility at 70 dB of the CI receivers score 60% after
1 m., 70% after 6 m., 75% after 1 y. and 3 y. and 80% after 6 y. All patients who
received a CI gain in speech intelligibility in quiet and in noise in comparison to
pre-operative measurements with best-fitted hearing aids.
C: This paper shows the clear benefit of rehabilitation with a cochlear implant of
patients suffering from post-lingually deafness, profound hearing loss, and severe
hearing impairment or with residual hearing deaf or patients. Even after several years
an improvement in speech intelligibility is possible.
