National Hearing Implant and Research Centre (NHIRC), Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.
Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.
Cochlear Implants Int. 2022 Jul;23(4):203-213. doi: 10.1080/14670100.2022.2052611. Epub 2022 Mar 22.
There is a tendency for children undergoing sequential cochlear implant after a long period of unilateral implant use to have a smaller dynamic range in their second implant compared to their first implant. This study aimed to investigate if balancing the dynamic ranges between the two implants influenced functional outcomes in sequentially implanted children. Nineteen participants with long inter-implant time delays were randomly assigned to a study group or a control group. Children in the study group received progressive minimal changes to both first and second implants over a period of nine months to achieve balanced dynamic ranges, while the children in the control group received only changes to their sequential implant. Functional outcomes were collected 24-months after sequential implantation and consisted of speech discrimination scores, spatial localisation, device use and quality of life measures. Results show that spatial discrimination skills improved over time for both groups of children; however children in the study group had smaller localisation errors compared with the children in the control group. No other differences between the two groups were observed. Balanced dynamic ranges in sequentially implanted children can contribute to better performance, particularly in spatial discrimination tasks that rely in inter-aural level differences.
有这样一种趋势，即经历长时间单侧植入后再行序贯人工耳蜗植入的儿童，其第二植入体的动态范围比第一植入体小。本研究旨在探讨平衡两耳植入体的动态范围是否会影响序贯植入儿童的功能结果。19 名具有较长植入体间时间延迟的参与者被随机分配到研究组或对照组。研究组的儿童在 9 个月的时间内，对第一和第二植入体进行渐进式微小调整，以实现平衡的动态范围，而对照组的儿童只对序贯植入体进行调整。序贯植入后 24 个月收集功能结果，包括言语辨别分数、空间定位、设备使用和生活质量评估。结果表明，两组儿童的空间辨别能力随时间推移而提高；然而，与对照组相比，研究组的儿童的定位误差更小。两组之间没有观察到其他差异。序贯植入儿童平衡的动态范围可以提高其表现，特别是在依赖于耳间水平差异的空间辨别任务中。
