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What is Cochlear Implant?

“Cochlear implants are a solution for children and adults with severe or profound hearing loss.”

While most people with hearing loss are quite successful with hearing aids, there are some individuals with severe to profound hearing loss for whom hearing aids do not provide enough benefit. For these people with severe damage to the sensory cells in the inner ear, a cochlear implant is often the best option for better hearing.

These tiny, complex medical devices work differently than hearing aids. Rather than amplifying sound, which helps an individual with residual hearing ability, a cochlear implant provides the sense of sound by stimulating the auditory nerve directly. Cochlear implants do not cure hearing loss or restore hearing, but they do provide an opportunity for the severely hard of hearing or deaf to perceive the sensation of sound by bypassing the damaged inner ear.


Various indication for cochlear implantation

The main indication for cochlear implantation is severe-to-profound hearing loss that is not adequately treated with standard hearing aids. The clinical conditions that lead to such an indication include various scenarios, as follows:

  • Congenital hearing loss and prelingual deafness.
  • Acquired hearing loss and postlingual deafness.
  • Severe hearing loss that can be aided and that deteriorates to profound loss in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood (perilingual) and coexists with various degrees of language development.

Common etiologies of deafness that lead to consideration of cochlear implantation in pediatric patients include idiopathic, genetic, and acquired causes that result in congenital and delayed-onset hearing loss. Genetic hearing loss can be dominant or recessive. Infectious etiologies, including bacterial and postviral meningitis, can lead to severe hearing loss. In children, this is confirmed via auditory testing and failure to develop basic auditory skills.


When Cochlear Implantation is considered?

Success of cochlear implantation depends on stimulation of surviving spiral ganglion neurons, Children are fitted with hearing aids, and a decision to implant is based on progress or lack of language development and careful counseling of the family. If a child is clearly found to be an implant candidate, an earlier implantation results in superior hearing and speech outcomes.

Implantation at age 12 months is now considered ideal, and, in some instances, implantation at an earlier age is performed. Adults with progressive loss that ultimately fails to be managed via amplification also may present for implant consideration.


PSG Hospitals in Coimbatore Tamil Nadu is one of the leading Cochlear Implant centers. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, diagnostic and therapeutic equipment to perform Cochlear Implant Surgery, We have so far completed more than 200 Implants with high success rate even for complicated as well.

We have an exclusive Implant team consisting of highly skilled ENT Surgeons, Pediatricians, Audiologists, Child psychologists, Audio-verbal therapists and skilled Nursing Staff.