[Management of a deaf-blind patient with a 12-channel cochlear implant]

A case study of a deaf-blind patient implanted with the COMBI40+ cochlear implant is presented. The patient is a 70-year-old woman who has been blind since the age of 40. Since 1977 the hearing loss continuously increased. Before surgery she had a very small residual hearing (with hearing aid: 40% speech intelligibility by four syllable numbers) and she used Braille and finger-spelling on her hand to communicate with other people. The patient has a high intelligence and so she did not have any problems when the speechprocessor was fitted and during the hearing therapy. After one month she had an open-set-speech recognition. The quality of her life is much better than before surgery. The communication by finger-spelling on her hand is not necessary any longer.