TY - JOUR AU - Naeem, Fizza AU - Raza, Sayed Nusrat AU - Khan, Taimoor Ashraf AU - Aiman, Um e PY - 2020/08/19 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - ASSOCIATION OF AGE WITH HEARING REHABILITATION AFTER COCHLEAR IMPLANT JF - Pakistan Armed Forces Medical Journal JA - PAFMJ VL - 70 IS - 4 SE - Original Articles DO - UR - https://pafmj.org/PAFMJ/article/view/5058 SP - 933-37 AB - <p><strong>Objective:</strong> To determine the hearing outcomes following unilateral cochlear implantation &amp; speech therapy in patients with bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss.</p><p><strong>Study Design:</strong> Prospective observational study.</p><p><strong>Place and Duration of Study:</strong> Department of ENT, Head and Neck Surgery, Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi, from Dec 2018 to Dec 2019.</p><p><strong>Methodology:</strong> We included 40 cases who underwent unilateral cochlear implantation at the Cochlear Implant Centre of Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi and later on had at least 6 months of continuous speech rehabilitation (post-activation) at Speech Rehab Center of the same hospital. All patients had their cochlear implants activated 6 weeks after the surgery. Auditory rehabilitation was assessed continuously at each session by a single speech therapist and documented using the “5 stages of listening i.e. has a very good vocabulary, has a basic vocabulary, understands words, responds to sounds, doubtful response to sound.”</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Out of 40 patients, 22 (55%) were male and 18 (45%) were females. Age at the time of cochlear implan-tation ranged from 2 to 8.4 years with a mean age of 4.5 ± 1.34 years. At 6 months 50% of children in age group 2-3 years had clinically and statistically significant response to speech rehabilitation post cochlear implant surgery.</p><p><strong> Conclusion:</strong> We concluded that a cochlear implant is a safe and highly effective treatment for bilateral severe to profound sensorineural deafness in pediatric age from 2 to 8 years while the best results documented in our study are for age 2 and 3 years at implantation.</p> ER -