Cochlear Corporation Announces Graeme Clark Scholarships

Cochlear Corporation announced the winners of the fifth annual Graeme Clark Cochlear Scholarship, an award that recognizes the achievements of the company's cochlear implant recipients.

Fallout from Boston Scientifics Buyout of Advanced Bionics

The Boston Globe has a lengthy article about the tumult that followed Boston Scientific's 2004 purchase of Advanced Bionics. [Free registration required.]

Update: Alfred Mann wins a round in federal court, requests recission of merger with BSX.

On Tuesday, New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein agreed with Mann and issued an injunction temporarily blocking Boston Scientific from removing Mann from his position. He said the company must first pursue the lengthy dispute resolution process outlined in the original merger contract.

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After Hellerstein issued his opinion, attorneys for Mann asked the judge to consider a new option: Scrapping the merger agreement.

Because the two parties "will likely be locked in battle for years," the request said, the judge should consider voiding the deal -- a legal measure called rescission.

Advances in Neural Prostheses

An interesting article about developments in neural prostheses, including cochlear implants.

Cochlear Implant May Restore Balance

After developing a successful models in animals, Charles Santini, a scientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is designing a vestibular implant to restore the vestibular-ocular reflex, in humans.

Cochlear implants use a microphone and processor to code sound and send it directly to the cochlear nerve via electrodes implanted in the inner ear. They completely bypass the dead hair cells. Similarly, a vestibular implant uses tiny gyroscopic sensors to measure head movement and sends that information straight to the vestibular nerve using electrodes.

Wisconsin Study Shows Benefits of Bilateral Cochlear Implants

The study, released February 13th, made two important points:

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Although variability existed among the children, the study indicates that most did develop the ability to locate speech and other sounds more accurately when using two cochlear implants versus one. This capability also increased with experience.

"We're now seeing that the ability to localize sounds takes time to emerge," says Litovsky. "What seems to get better is the integration of the information from the two ears in the brain."

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Another crucial question is whether children should receive both implants simultaneously, at the same time, or sequentially, at different times, she says. The study's results have implications here, as well.

"The children we're looking at received their implants sequentially," says Litovsky, "and we think that their brains took a very long time to combine the inputs from the two ears." Yet, the fact they learned to do so points to the brain's adaptability, or "plasticity," she adds. "It reveals that the brain is still open to input from an ear that was deaf for a very long time."

Cochlear Corporation Reports Increased Earnings

Cochlear Corporation "achieved record revenue of $276.1 million in the six months to December 31, and a 31 per cent increase in sales to $240.3 million."

The 25-year-old company holds 70 per cent of the hearing implants market and said a main contributor to the first half result was sales of a newly launched backwards compatible Nucleus Freedom Speech Processor.

Quality Adjusted Life Years and Cochlear Implants

The My Son Tom blog has an interesting discussion of QALY Quality Adjusted Life Years and how that concept impacts the decision of a government health service to pay for unilateral and bilateral cochlear implants.

[QALY] is an attempt to measure the impact of medical interventions on both the quantity and quality of life resulting from said intervention. By throwing into the equation the cost of the interventions, the 'Powers That Decide Such Things' can make informed choices about which procedures to fund and to whom, based on their cost-effectiveness...

Education Support for Children with Cochlear Implants on Staten Island

An article in the Staten Island Advance describes the educational support currently available for children with cochlear implants.

Education officials acknowledge that children with cochlear implants who receive support services early on have a high likelihood of not requiring those services by the time they're in kindergarten, allowing them to join their normally hearing peers in general education classes.

Data From Experimental Hybrid Cochlear Implant Study

An article in the January 29 Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides clinical data about the FDA approved study of hybrid cochlear implants. Developed at the University of Iowa, the hybrid cochlear implant is designed to restore hearing loss without destroying residual hearing.

Of the 90 patients implanted with the new device, three have been removed after patients lost hearing between three months to two years after surgery and weren't happy with the results, Gantz said. Six patients lost hearing, but are using hearing aids with the implant and still hear better than they did before surgery, he said. In most patients, the surgery has been successful, with a patient's average word understanding increasing from 20 percent to more than 70 percent after having the implant for a year.

Graeme Clark Developing Spinal Implant

Cochlear implant pioneer Graeme Clark's latest project is a spinal implant to solve spinal cord injuries.

Using "smart plastics", the team is developing an implant that would be surgically inserted into the damaged area of a patient's spinal cord. "Smart plastics" conduct electricity and are combined with carbon nanotubes - thousands of microscopic fibres that touch nerve endings. The implant receives radio waves through the skin from a transmitter pack worn outside the body on the patient's back. The electrical stimulus received by the implant allows it to release nerve growth hormones that encourage damaged spinal nerves to regrow and eventually reconnect with other nerves.

Omaha Girl Dies of Menigitis

A seven year old Omaha, Nebraska girl with a cochlear implant died over the weekend from bacterial meningitis. She had not been vaccinated.