What is a cochlear implant, how does it work?
When a patient is told that he/she has a “nerve” hearing loss, in truth, it is almost never the nerve that is not working. The problem almost always lies in the microscopic hair cells that convert mechanical sound to electrical energy within the organ of hearing (see “how we hear”) A cochlear implant bypasses the sick hair cells and directly, electrically, stimulates the healthy nerve endings under the hair cells.
