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Double cochlear implants for children
22 December 2009
Until 2009 profoundly deaf children were offered one cochlear implant, but new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends double implants to maximise hearing ability. As a result, it is expected that 12 children a year will now benefit from this surgery.
Children who have already had one implant are being offered a second implant operation. Severely and profoundly deaf adults are also being offered double implants if they are also blind or have other disabilities that increase their reliance upon their hearing.
Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals' ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) surgeon James Ramsden is performing the operations at our Oxford hospital. He said: "Cochlear implants have been available at the John Radcliffe Hospital since 1995. Over the years, the number of patients receiving them has gone up and age of the recipients has gone down. We perform about 35 cochlear implant operations on adults and children each year and children as young as a year old are having cochlear implants fitted."
What's different now is that NHS Oxfordshire (formerly known as Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust) is funding double cochlear implants for children (in line with the recent change in NICE guidelines). In addition, new hearing screening tests for newborn babies enable profoundly deaf children to be identified early. This means that those children who would benefit from cochlear implants have their surgery much younger, helping significantly with their development.
About 800 babies are born in the UK each year with significant deafness.