One year old child with cochlear implant
More and more hearing impaired patients are turning to cochlear implants to restore their hearing. Neurotologist Moises Arriaga, medical director of CNC Hearing and Balance Center, has watched the evolution of cochlear implants over the years. According to Dr. Arriaga, cochlear implants are not just for the deaf any more. Cochlear implants can be of use to a wider array of patients struggling with hearing loss.
“Cochlear implants have succeeded beyond the wildest speculation considered when they first were approved. No longer are they limited to deaf people,” Dr. Arriaga said. “Now, people with severe hearing loss whose hearing aids are no longer enough for communication in background sound often are great candidates for cochlear implants.”
In this video, Dr. Arriaga discusses the wider use of cochlear implants for the severely hearing impaired. Thanks to advances in hearing technology, more and more hearing impaired patients are able to take advantage of cochlear implant technologies.
As a neurotologist, Dr. Arriaga is trained as both a neurosurgeon and head and neck surgeon and frequently implants cochlear devices. Most recently, he was part of a team that performed the first-ever implantation of a cochlear device in a one year old child born with no outer ears, facial nerve abnormalities and no hearing. Dr. Arriaga, working in the operating room with Culicchia Neurological Clinic Neurosurgeon Frank Culicchia and Dr. Jerome Volk of New Orleans Children’s Hospital, placed the cochlear implant by accessing the site through the middle fossa portion of the brain. This procedure is extremely rare and complex and never attempted before in a young child.
