Deaf Patients Hear Sounds With Unique Device - "Bionic Ear" Processes Sound Directly Through Brain

Main Category: Hearing / Deafness
Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Article Date: 15 Feb 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Children laughing, a barking dog, a screaming siren - these are sounds most of us take for granted. For people who are deaf, they are noises they only wish they could hear. Now, for some who have been in a silent world, a "bionic ear" device is helping that world come alive.

For years, Phyllis Lee couldn't hear the water running or the dishes clinking as she cleaned up after dinner. Then one day last year, that all changed. She began hearing noises again.

"I'll never forget that first beep. It's like, oh, there's sound," exclaims Phyllis.

She's one of only 500 people in the world to receive the auditory brainstem implant, or ABI. Since her normal hearing pathway no longer works, Dr. Bradley Welling at Ohio State University Medical Center uses the device because it's implanted in the brainstem.

"80% of patients that get the auditory brainstem implant or even better than 80% will hear and understand sound," says Welling.

For his patients who live in a silent world, Dr. Welling says it's rewarding to open the door to sound and improve their quality of life so dramatically.

"It helps patients to receive environmental sound, it helps them to understand speech sometimes, it helps them to be able to lip read much better, and it also helps them to improve their own voice and modulate their speaking," says Welling.

Phyllis' husband, Steve, also has the ABI device. This is how it works: sound comes into a microphone, is processed in a box worn at the waist, then it's sent through a magnet directly into the patient's brainstem - to be processed as noise.

"It's awesome that a deaf person can hear little sounds again," says Steve.

"I'll never be able to hear a voice like you hear it, but that's okay. It's a matter of stepping back into the world again," says Phyllis.

The ABI is the only FDA-approved device that can restore limited hearing to people who have no remaining auditory nerves.

Ohio State University Medical Center

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