Patient performance over eighteen months with the Ineraid intracochlear implant

We present our results with an 18-month follow-up for 15 adult patients treated with the Ineraid (formerly Symbion) four-channel intracochlear implant. All were postlingually deaf with profound or total hearing loss. Performance was tested in lipreading, implant only, and combined lipreading and implant modes using Boothroyd word lists, Bamford-Kowal-Bench (BKB) sentences, and Connected Discourse Tracking. Assessments were made after 10 hours of training and again at 9 and 18 months postimplantation. Mean scores at 18 months in the implant only mode were for Boothroyd word lists 39%, for BKB sentences 47%, and for connected discourse tracking 31 words per minute. In the combined implant and lipreading mode the mean scores were for Boothroyd word lists 85%, for BKB sentences 96%, and for connected discourse tracking 75 words per minute. A profile of implant performance against time shows that after 10 hours' training, 12 of the 15 subjects had some speech discrimination in the implant only mode for all three tests. When using their implant combined with lipreading, all 15 subjects improved their speech discrimination scores over those obtained with lipreading alone after 10 hours' training. By 9 months, all subjects had some speech discrimination in the implant only mode on all three tests. Between 9 and 18 months there was a slight trend toward improvement in implant performance, both when the implant was used alone and when it was combined with lipreading.