[Single channel cochlear implant: application to three patients].

Single channel cochlear implant of 3M/House design was implanted to the three patients with profound hearing loss. Before the implantation, use of hearing aid had not afforded serviceable hearing enough for speech recognition in these patients. Postoperative courses were uneventful. Speech rehabilitation was started at 3 weeks after the surgery. The speech tracking scores with the cochlear implant plus lipreading achieved 20-25 bunsetues (the minimum meaningful unit of the Japanese sentence) per minute at three or four months after the operation. All the patients could recognize speech of daily life with help of lipreading. However, speech recognition by the cochlear implant alone was not satisfactory.