Awareness on cochlear implantation to overcome congenital deafness has improved over the years. Realising the importance of the expensive procedure to help children speak, the Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme, Tamil Nadu, has extended cover for the implants. Private firms do not provide insurance cover for it. There are many children out there who need these implants that will enable them to hear and speak. For children of military personnel, the implant is done free at the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune.
Coimbatore Chapter President of the Indian Speech and Hearing Association T. Kannan said that four out of every 1,000 newborns in the world suffer congenital severe sensory neural hearing loss (commonly known as congenital deafness). “In India there is no recent study on the same but the numbers could be at the same or even higher level,” he said. According to him 70 per cent of the reason for babies to be born with hearing disability is genetic and the rest could be infection or illness during pregnancy and delivery.
Senior ENT surgeon and post graduate teacher Anand Velusamy - who has been performing cochlear implants for more than a decade - said that premature babies and those born after a difficult labour should undergo hearing test at a very young age.
He said that cochlear implant was the most successful mode of treatment – with a 94 per cent success rate. The best stage for performing the surgery was when the child is one to two years old. This is possible only through early screening. “Many parents take their children for cochlear implants when they are five to six years old,” he said and added that when the implant is done after six years of age it is not that effective. “It is 50 per cent if the child crosses 6 years, 10 per cent if it is done at 10 years and zero if it is done after 15 years,” he explained.
He said that post implant care was the key to make the child speak. “Dedication of the child’s parents in helping the child gain confidence is instrumental,” he said. “Families with children who have had this implant should get rid of televisions and other distractions and focus on the child.”
(Reporting by
M.K. Ananth)
