What is a middle ear implant?
A middle ear implant is a hearing aid where either the receiver, or the entire hearing aid is surgically inserted into the middle ear. The advantages of such an implant are two-fold. First, if the ossicles can be driven directly, there may be improved sound quality, with no feedback. Second, a middle ear implant may be completely implantable with no external components at all. Indeed two manufacturers have now designed completely implantable middle ear devices. In addition, depending on the MEI, if there is no device in the ear canal, there is no insertion loss with a net boost in high-frequency sound transmission. Are all middle ear implants the same? No, MEIs come in two different types- electromagnetic and piezo-electric. While Dr. Wilska’s work in the 1930s used an electromagnetic approach, the first clinically wearable middle ear implants were of the piezo-electric type. A piezo-electric crystal has some interesting properties. When such a crystal is bent, it generates an electric
