The UK's first operation to fit a single cochlear implant capable of giving sound in both ears has taken place, thanks to the work of the South of England Cochlear Implant Centre (SOECIC), based at the University of Southampton (August 2010). Read more
Children who are being treated for hearing loss with cochlear implants can safely have ear tubes installed to help clear up infections, say researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States (June 2010). Read more
More electrodes and a thinner, more flexible wire inserted further into the inner ear could improve conventional cochlear implants, according to a team of researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology, United States (June 2010). Read more
Older adults appear to benefit significantly from cochlear implants, but not as much as younger patients who had similar levels of hearing impairment before surgery (May 2010). Read more
Receiving a cochlear implant before 18 months of age dramatically improves a deaf child's ability to hear, understand and, eventually, speak, according to a multicentre study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States (April 2010). Read more
Problems often occur with hearing devices during sport, swimming and even showers. This inevitably causes certain lifestyle limitations. One solution would be to have a fully implantable hearing device that can be placed under the skin, entirely out of harm’s way. Could such a solution soon be available? (January 2010) Read more
Deafness Research UK is supporting an investigation by Dr Roberta Donato at the UCL Ear Institute in London into the way the brain combines sounds from the two ears to help create an auditory "image" of the world (March 2009). Read more
Deafness Research UK has awarded a grant to Professor Ray Meddis at the University of Essex to explore the potential of computer models of hearing for helping us to understand different kinds of hearing impairment (March 2009). Read more
Deafness Research UK recently awarded a project grant to Dr Kevin Munro at the University of Manchester to investigate the benefit to cochlear implant users of stimulating the part of the inner ear that responds to low sound frequencies, with the aim to improve speech understanding and musical perception (March 2009). Read more
A new Deafness Research UK project grant has been awarded to Professor Brian Moore of Cambridge University to develop new tests of auditory performance that could be used in the clinic to greatly improve the selection and fitting of hearing aids (March 2009). Read more
Mr David McAlpine, Professor of Auditory Neuroscience and Director of the UCL Ear Institute, and an expert in binaural processing, recently undertook Deafness Research UK funded research to examine why deaf and hard of hearing people find it hard to communicate in noisy environments (March 2009). Read more
Bone anchored hearing aids (BAHAs) have been in use in the UK for around twenty years but are not widely known, even among medical professionals. BAHAs conduct sound through the skull bone whereas, conventional hearing aids conduct sound through air (April 2009). Read more
Click here to listen to a podcast by Professor Robert Shepherd, the Director of the Bionic Ear Institute and a Professor of Medical Bionics in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Recent scientific advances have made cochlear implants more amenable to being implanted in the less fully formed skulls of babies and toddlers. Read more
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