Acoustic plus electric speech processing: preliminary results of a multicenter clinical trial of the Iowa/Nucleus Hybrid implant.

Aim: This communication details the latest preliminary results from an ongoing multicenter single-subject design clinical trial of the Iowa/Nucleus Hybrid 10-mm cochlear implant. Selection criteria, surgical strategies used for hearing preservation, and the benefits of preserved residual low-frequency hearing, improved word understanding in noise, and music appreciation are described.

Patients And Methods: The device has been implanted in 48 individuals with residual low-frequency hearing.

Music perception with cochlear implants and residual hearing.

Aim: The aims of this study were to examine the music perception abilities of Cochlear Nucleus Hybrid (acoustic plus electric stimulation) cochlear implant (CI) recipients and to compare their performance with that of normal-hearing (NH) adults and CI recipients using conventional long-electrode (LE) devices (Advanced Bionics: 90K, Clarion, CIIHF; Cochlear Corporation: CI24M, CI22, Contour; Ineraid). Hybrid CI recipients were compared with NH adults and LE CI recipients on recognition of (a) real-world melodies and (b) musical instruments.

Patients And Methods: We tested 4 Hybrid CI recipients, 17 NH adults, and 39 LE CI recipients on open-set recognition of real-world songs presented with and without lyrics.

Preservation of hearing in cochlear implant surgery: advantages of combined electrical and acoustical speech processing.

Objectives/hypothesis: This study documents the importance of preserving residual low-frequency acoustic hearing as those with more residual hearing are selected for cochlear implantation. Surgical strategies used for hearing preservation with a short hybrid cochlear implant are outlined. The benefits of preserved residual low-frequency hearing, improved word understanding in noise, and music appreciation are described.