Vot is a CI?
I shall spare you from the very detailed descriptions as having read many other blogs, I know that it can get very complicated....
A charming little video
A hearing aid amplifies sound so that the poor addled inner ear hairs/receptors can 'pick up' what it can. You 'hear' through the aid, and then through the process of working out what you've heard - not terribly efficient - which is why I'm forever speaking too loud/soft/quiet - simply because my auditory representation of the world is limited by the technology resting on my ears.
A cochlear implant ignores the poor addled inner ear's ability to pick up sound and ensures that sound is converted to electrical signals for the brain's enjoyment. The implant itself is a small wire with up to 24 electrodes that is inserted into the cochlea. The average normal ear has up to 20,000 hair cells and receptors to provide you wilth a delicious sensory experience, I'm told that the brain can do wonders with up to 24 electrodes... doesn't seem possible does it?
Additionally, because you can rely on the brain to translate and make sense of the sounds, a wider range is available to you. With hearing aids, I still cannot pick up certain sounds, up to the age of 18 I had never heard bird song. A CI isn't constrained in that way - it simply enables the brain to make sense of electrical signals picked up by the cochlea, identifying all the sounds is very tricky according to many sources.
Now, as a reward for all that concentration and brain scratching....
If you haven't seen Drive yet, don't watch it...
A charming little video
A hearing aid amplifies sound so that the poor addled inner ear hairs/receptors can 'pick up' what it can. You 'hear' through the aid, and then through the process of working out what you've heard - not terribly efficient - which is why I'm forever speaking too loud/soft/quiet - simply because my auditory representation of the world is limited by the technology resting on my ears.
A cochlear implant ignores the poor addled inner ear's ability to pick up sound and ensures that sound is converted to electrical signals for the brain's enjoyment. The implant itself is a small wire with up to 24 electrodes that is inserted into the cochlea. The average normal ear has up to 20,000 hair cells and receptors to provide you wilth a delicious sensory experience, I'm told that the brain can do wonders with up to 24 electrodes... doesn't seem possible does it?
Additionally, because you can rely on the brain to translate and make sense of the sounds, a wider range is available to you. With hearing aids, I still cannot pick up certain sounds, up to the age of 18 I had never heard bird song. A CI isn't constrained in that way - it simply enables the brain to make sense of electrical signals picked up by the cochlea, identifying all the sounds is very tricky according to many sources.
Now, as a reward for all that concentration and brain scratching....
If you haven't seen Drive yet, don't watch it...
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