Coimbatore: Lack of awareness about cochlear implant exists in many rural areas and as a part of the Cochlear Implant team, PSG Hospitals' marketing department conducts camps and posts message on social media to help create awareness.
Coimbatore: Lack of awareness about cochlear implant exists in many rural areas and as a part of the Cochlear Implant team, PSG Hospitals' marketing department conducts camps and posts message on social media to help create awareness.
PSG Hospitals just celebrated 200 successful Cochlear Implants to create awareness among parents about cochlear implant surgery for children who are unable to speak and hear. This also highlighted the importance of speech therapy post switch on which will help change the lives of the children.
Cochlear implant is a surgical procedure done to enable hearing in a deaf child. At PSG Hospitals, cochlear implant surgery began in May 2016 and has been running successfully till date, under a team of one Chief Surgeon, a Consultant, two Audiologists and three Speech Therapists.
Hearing impairment is a very common congenital anomaly in newborns. Six out of every 1000 children are impaired in their hearing. Early detection in these hearing impaired kids is very important for a better audio-verbal outcome. OAE is a simple tool used for screening hearing loss in newborns.
The Chief Minister's scheme in Tamil Nadu provides cochlear implant free of cost to all children less than six years of age who are suffering from congenital hearing loss. Thus far, 200 kids under the age of six years have been registered under the CM scheme and have been successfully implanted with good hearing outcomes without any cost, including pre-implant evaluations such as CT, MRI scans and Audio Logical Evaluation.
Post-surgery, the PSG Hospitals perform the switch on of cochlear implant after three weeks, with the help of computer software which enables the children to hear like a normal child and the rehabilitation process (speech therapy) begins from there for a year in order to stimulate speech.