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Elderly don't fare worse after cochlear implantation

Posted on: Tuesday, 20 December 2005, 13:53 CST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Age has no effect on outcome after implantation of a cochlear device among people over 65, a study suggests, leading researchers to conclude that elderly patients "should not be discriminated against in assessments for cochlear implant candidacy."

A cochlear implant is a small electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. The device does not restore or create normal hearing. Instead, under the right conditions, it can give a deaf person a useful auditory understanding of the environment around them and help him or her understand speech. It is surgically placed under the skin behind the ear.

The use of cochlear implants in elderly people is "controversial," even though there is substantial evidence that they can benefit from the devices, researchers point out in the Archives of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery.

To help clarify the effect of age on outcome, Dr. John K. Niparko of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland and colleagues looked at 749 people who had undergone the procedure and who ranged in age from 14 to 91 years.

The team found a wide variation in postoperative "word scores" across age groups. Although those 65 years of age and older had a 4.6 percent lower score on postoperative monosyllabic word recognition tests, this difference was not significant, the researchers note, and may not be "clinically detectable."

Longer duration of deafness was typically tied to worse performance on word recognition tests. However, among people who had been deaf for longer than 25 years, the older implant recipients scored higher than younger patients. This suggests, the researchers say, that variables beyond age may be involved in implant outcome, such as early language learning and residual hearing.

"A foundation of central auditory processing in the older cohort," Niparko's group offers, "may actually mitigate the disadvantage of advanced age at implantation, build on adaptive skills, and help explain the encouraging results of this study."

Source: Archives of Otolayngology-Head and Neck Surgery December 2005.

Source: REUTERS

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