For four-year-old Rabiya, whose hearing is impaired and belongs to a family in which eight members, including her parents are deaf, may soon start hearing for the first time in her life after undergoing a cochlear implant at the Bombay Hospital recently Cochelar implants are little receptors that are implanted inside the skin near the ear. It is an electronicc device that consists of a microphone which picks up sound, a speech processor which selects and arranges the sound picked up by the microphone, a transmitter which receives signals from the speech processor, and electrodes which send them to the auditory nerve and thus facilitates hearing.
Rabiya underwent a CT scan and MRI scan to confirm whether she is eligible for the implant. "It will take three weeks before she starts hearing sounds after the wound heals. She will undergo auditory verbal therapy that will help her get aware of sounds, after which she will start differentiating speech sound and language. She is like a new-born baby right now and will take at least 6 months to 1 year to start talking," said Dr Rajeev Nerurkar, ENT surgeon at Bombay Hospital. Between one and four years is the ideal time for cochlear implants.
Rabiya's parents, grandparents, uncle and first cousins are all congenitally deaf. Even her one-year-old sister has hearing impairment. Her parents now plan to get the implant surgery done on the younger sister as well. The procedure costs around Rs 5 lakh.
Till Rabiya was brought to the hospital no one in the family even thought that the disability could be cured. "Rabiya's parents wanted her to live a normal life. They got in touch with us five months back and after lot of discussion agreed to go for cochlear implant as the hearing aid that was given to her on a trial basis didn't help," Nerurkar said.
It was Rabiya's father's friends who put them in touch with the doctor. "The relatives and friends of the father helped in communicating and motivated the parents. It took them five months to decide but we are happy that the detection and intervention was early. It is very important for optimal results with cochlear implant. Hospitals have even started doing hearing screening of the newborn to detect hearing loss," said Dr Nerurkar.
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