Media and Animation
Director at CHC
New York Super Doctor
Dr. Hammerschlag works with an Aural Atresia patient – listen to the heart-breaking story of how his family’s fundraising was stolen during a fundraising event but recovered after this story was on the news.
Cochlear Implants
The modern cochlear implant has two parts: an external non-surgically implanted speech processor and an internal surgically implanted unit. The external speech processor, worn behind the ear, has a microphone to pick up sounds which are then converted into encoded signals that are transmitted by radio waves to the internal surgically implanted part. The internal receiver unit then sends this coded information via an electrode array to stimulate the auditory nerve fibers in the inner ear (cochlea). The activated auditory nerves transmit the sound signal to the brain for sound perception.
The perceived sound signals may not be identical to sounds heard by the normal hearing ear, but profoundly hearing impaired people learn to interpret this range of auditory signals to understand speech. At this time, cochlear implants do not restore normal hearing, but produce meaningful auditory perception for speech comprehension for most Cochlear Implant users. [video credit to Cochlear Limited]