It's a whole new ball game! Employment experiences of people with a cochlear implant.

Many implantees anecdotally report employment benefits being associated with implantation. This benefit has not been routinely reported in prospective studies of implant outcomes. It is important therefore to establish the nature of benefit reported by implantees so that further studies may document such outcomes in a representative fashion.

Evaluating the health-related quality of life effects of cochlear implants: a prospective study of an adult cochlear implant program.

This paper prospectively documents the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and social participation benefits of adult patients receiving cochlear implants in Australia and New Zealand. Thirty-four consecutively implanted patients completed the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) and Hearing Participation Scale (HPS) instruments before implantation, and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Implantation resulted in significant improvements in AQoL and HPS scores, The effect size was 1.