vLog on "The Greatest Irony"

I was watching Amy Cohen Efron's vlog and I was truly impressed with her vlog. I couldn't agree more. I would like to emphasize the parents of deaf babies, to do your own research before making decision for the future of your deaf babies.

DO NOT RELY on the advice of the doctors and audiologists only, please do take a heed to the advice of Deaf people as well! There are many good resources on DeafRead.com on various topics relating to ASL, Deaf culture, and assistive technologies.

Before you can make research adventure, it is a good start with this "The Greatest Irony" vlog and it is voice-interpreted.

Go and visit her website at Deaf World as Eye See It.

And also a parental response to The Greatest Irony, click here.

Brain implanted electrodes has brought consciousness back

Sometimes, technology does some wonders. For this man, he has been in "minimally conscious state" which is very close to coma or vegetative state. He has been in that condition for 6 years, feeding on a tube into his belly.

After the brain implant electrodes were implanted into his head and researchers turned on and off the electrodes over six months and reported that it became effective for this man. He is able to chew and swallow instead of using feeding tube.

It looks very risky by looking at that picture, electrodes going real deep into the brain. But with man in "almost" vegetative state, it surely worth to do that kind of research work! If you disagree with that research process, is it worth for man to stay in "almost" vegetative state for the rest of his life? What if Terri Schiavo had that implanted, would she be successful? Her parents believed that she was not in vegatative state, but her husband did.

BTW, interesting story! CLICK FOR FULL STORY

Cochlear Implants do work???

As I am a failed implantee. I wanted to express my concerns on how the hospitals and cochlear companies release success rates in their statistics. Actually, they never wanted to show their FULL statistics and only expose statistics BASED on most successes.

I have asked an audiologist at Johns Hopkins about the statistics on successes and failures for the patients who were pre-linguals and post-linguals so I can look at real hard data. She responded that there is no such data to release and cases do vary greatly on individual basis.

I do not believe in her claims. I really do think that cochlear companies should disclose all statistic data to the public. Or have an independent statisticans to survey on all implantees about their satisfication with the implants. I believe somewhere about 1 to 5% of deaf prelinguals were successful implantees as compared with postlingual adults with higher rate.

As well as AgBAD, the most heated talk in the DeafRead-sphere. I believe likewise that AgBAD are trying to suppress ASL and advocate oralism. There should be some kind of statistics on the success rates between ASL and oralism. I do believe that ASL do fare well and is more successful than oralism.

I do think likewise cochlear companies and AgBAD prefer to suppress the real data and continue their own propaganda.

It is all about MONEY and POWER after all, folks.

New Hearing Implant

Here's interesting new technology that bypass hearing bones, cochlea and goes into auditory nerves.

I remember European countries do "brain-stem" implants that bypass cochlea but it was huge failure on that kind of implant.

Not everyone succeed using cochlear implants, why? Like in my case, I have severe ossified cochlea which was caused by Spinal Meningitis. Doctor and audiologist believed that my case with cochlear implant was a failure due to problems of ossified cochleas. In a result, I simply gave it up and proud to continue to be Deaf.

Now with newest technology, it can give hopes for the future Deaf/deaf people who have been in contact with spinal meningitis and other diseases that deformed cochleas. It can bypass cochleas and in direct contact with the auditory nerves. I am not sure if that new technology would benefit prelingual deaf people as it looks promising for postlingual deaf people. Maybe I could try again! :)

Here is the article from ScienCentral NEWS on New Hearing Implant.

Hat tip: Oscar the Observer

Video clip by Michael Chorost, etc.

I got it off from Michael Chorost website for this video clip. It is good documentary video for anyone to learn what the cochlear implants are all about.

Click here for the video.

Also what's more on Michael Chorost's view of Gallaudet protests, you can visit his website here, and scroll down to two posts: "October 18, 2006: Chaos at Gallaudet" and "October 30, 2006: My visit to Gallaudet."

In there, he wrote,

An audiologist there said to me, “Gallaudet’s slogan is, ‘Deaf people can do anything, except hear.’ Sooner or later we’re going to have to change that to ‘Deaf people can do anything, including hear.’”

I really disagree with that part... Why? Then hearing folks would have expected deaf people to hear eventhough they reject the implant or implant doesn't work for them. In my case, I am not 100% hearing on everything. I only can hear some and still not able to recognize the sounds yet.

I am not 100% convinced that cochlear implants do work 100% for many deaf people who have been profoundly deaf by many years. Most cochlear implant centers do withheld statistics on how successful prelingual deaf people who wore cochlear implants. Cochlear implant centers tend to give positive data results than giving out full data of success and failures. Cochlear implant centers should be forced to be transparent with full data of successes and failures with prelingual and postlingual profiles.

Yesterday's mapping session

Hey everyone, it has been about 3 months since the last mapping!

Actually, I didn't get good mapping last time. But I had another speech processor with old mapping, I used it for the last two weeks before the appointment.

I was able to use that mapping in yesterday's appointment and modified it to hear more in new mappings. I am hearing more sounds from voices and environmental noises.

What I heard that I didn't hear before... my daughter's crying and laughing - there's more but I can't remember what it was. One time, I thought I heard elevator making noises. I am sure there is more to come, I haven't recognized noises yet.

Last three months is not really that great, but now I am relieved to continue with positive attitude after the new mappings. Seems like to me that I am ready to throw it out, but I am being patient and persist in the process!

Again, it is taking LOTS and LOTS of time to adjust and LOTS and LOTS of patience are required to be in the process. I think that I have ossified cochleas that is BIG disadvantage to speedy process compared with others who does not have ossified cochleas. So I am glad that yesterday's mapping have gone well. WHEW!

Otologics' MET implant device

It is not cochlear implant device, it's the Middle Ear Transducer implant. Why I put it up with this? There are some features on this implant which is very interesting. If it is successful, it could be applied to cochlear implant technology in the future.

Middle Ear Transducer implants are going under testing with 20 people (as in this article).

What's interesting about this implant. This implant does include battery built in and you can recharge the battery at nights thru your head. Reminds of me Star Trek's Seven of Nine being slept under energy being transitted thru her head. Striking similarity, isn't it? LOL Recharging device which takes one hour for implanted battery to be fully charged, see this photo below.

Also you couldn't change volumes or turn implant on/off directly. You will have to use remote control to adjust the volume or turning implant on/off. Recharger device unit can also adjust volume levels as well as turning on/off the implant. Remote control thru the skin. Wow. Wondering if two implantees messing around with others' implants with their remote control. ("Ouch thats LOUD!" to one another) That's my concern, but it could be coded to unique device. Picture of Remote control is shown below.

About battery built-in, I am very concerned on its battery life. Most rechargable batteries life is about 3 years. Will that mean the patients will have to undergo surgery in explanting and replanting the device every 6 years? I think mechanisms do have wear and tear in MET devices compared to cochlear implant, it only simulates electrical signals. But they say that battery life span is about 6+ years. Also it's length of battery operating power is about 2-4 days. It is impressive compared to Advanced Bionics' large rechargable battery that lasts only about 15 hours and its life span is about 3 years.

Also, built-in microphone makes me wonder how does it work. How does the sound go through the thick skin surface to the microphone? Wow, really.

Implant device:

Very interesting technological advancement.

Here's this link at:
http://www.otologics.com/us/index_us.cfm

Ongoing process...

Now it is already about a month from last mapping session. Actually, my hearing have improved to some degrees over a month.

I used P2 mapping immediately after P1, it makes my muscles twitching often, same with P3 and P4 which is stronger. So I stayed on P1 for three weeks, it seemed to iron out twitching problem before I switched to P2. I liked it and am hearing more.

For a while, my hearing was very sensitive to voices. Music wasn't bothersome for me but voices. I have lowered volume on voices, but it didn't help... so I tried to reducing on sensitivity level and it does work!

When I didn't focus on hearing, I wouldn't have hear much. But when I started to concentrate on TV and people talking, I heard them. I guess that concentration is the key to listening. I was informed by my parents that they met with realtor who have a son with cochlear implant. She passed the information to my parents to me. So it was the website Earobics at www.earobics.com. The word "Earobics" are similar to "Aerobics", Earobics is an exercise with listening. They have online listening games, it helps you to listen then pick out right words or letters. I seem to see some differences in these words... most words I couldn't discriminate yet. These games are for the kiddies, but adults could benefit from these games.

Remember, I still have only one channel out of 22 channels turned on. Audie said that once one channel improve, and she will switch on other channels. It looks like this time is more reliable because it doesn't fade out very fast. And seems sooner I will get more channels so I will be able to tell differences in sounds than just with one channel.

My next appointment would be within third week of April.

5th Activation Appointment

I have called to reschedule to have mapping done at earlier time. That's three weeks after the fourth mapping session instead of waiting for 2 months. Went in last Friday the 17th.

Why? I have faded out all maps on the programs and that's the reason I have to go back again.

So audie had me remapped and this time she's giving me new P1 map, the same P1 map into P2, P3 and P4. P2 contains ADRO, P3 contains Autosensitivity, and P4 contains Whisper. All of these maps use SPEAK strategy. SPEAK strategies are the best for the time being.

I decide to put away music for now. I'd rather to focus all on environmental and talking.

I heard garage door opener gone whirring... It was really loud! Isn't it too loud for you hearies?! Huh?? LOL I heard people talking once again after my old maps had faded out quickly.

UM's Cochlear Implant contains of 128 Electrodes

It would be available for humans within 4 to 5 years from now.

READ FULL ARTICLE

Advanced Bionics and Cochlear companies are ahead or behind UM's technology??? I wonder.