How much benefit does a patient receive from a cochlear implant?
No one can predict the specific hearing outcome with a cochlear implant. It is extremely rare (less than 1%) for no benefit to be realized with a cochlear implant. There are some general statements that can be made about outcomes based on data collected from groups of past adult implant recipients: • People who have once had hearing and have lost it have better outcomes than people who have never had hearing. People who have fully-developed speech and language skills have auditory memory which can be stimulated with the new input source of a cochlear implant. • People who have more residual hearing at time of surgery have better outcomes than people with very little measurable hearing at the time of implant. Although not a guarantee, the presence of measurable hearing suggests that there are viable neural elements present to be stimulated by the implant. • People who have been deaf for a short period of time have better outcomes than people with long-term deafness. Recent auditory memo
