Abstract
The cochlear implant (CI) is arguably the most successful electronic prosthesis ever to enter clinical service, with over one million severe to profoundly deaf adult or paediatric recipients. Since the early single-channel devices of the 1970s, technology has progressed to the point where, in favourable listening situations, most CI recipients can understand virtually every word of connected discourse without lipreading.
While CIs are delivering substantial clinical benefit, every aspect of the CI, from candidacy to surgery to programming to raw technology is being improved. Certainly a cure for deafness would be very welcome and the recent gene therapy success for otoferlin is a great start, the more common genetic mutations are much more challenging and reversing presbycusis still appears to be a long way off.
This lecture looks at the current status of cochlear implants and the direction of future research.
