PONCET-WALLET Christine

Open request - 2015

Open request - 2014

2015 Open request

Project status: closed

The use of eye-tracking to assess communication strategies among adults suffering from hearing loss before and after cochlear implant surgery.

Hearing loss in adults changes their communication abilities and creates a disability that may lead to isolation. Treatment of an adult who loses hearing includes a hearing device, whether a conventional prosthesis or a cochlear implant for more serious hearing loss, as well as speech therapy. Speech therapy aims to optimize the results of the hearing aids, but also to instill lip reading and neurocognitive skills in these adults. The goal of the project is to supplement traditional audiometric and speech therapy tests by performing an assessment of the subjects’ communication strategies. Do they use their hearing skills alone? Do they rely on lip reading and, if so, under what type of conditions and to what extent? Do they do it in the same way as those with normal hearing or differently? This type of assessment would also allow for a better assessment of patients who present related disorders (e.g., phasic, psychiatric or mental disorders).

2014 Open request

Project status: closed

Feasibility of remote monitoring applied to cochlear implant patients.

Cochlear implants for patients suffering from hearing loss partially restore hearing. The monitoring of patients having received cochlear implants involves the following as a minimum:

  • Annual monitoring (a speech assessment, a scheduled visit with an ENT specialist to have the external part of the implant adjusted by a doctor),
  • An emergency visit if the patient presents a complication or a device breakdown due to a system malfunction.

This monitoring requires in-person visits, and some patients find it difficult to attend the center either because they live far away or because of mobility issues or again because an absence from work is problematic. Remote monitoring of cochlear implant patients has shown very positive results in the United States.

The purpose of the study is to assess the reliability of remote monitoring of patients with cochlear implants and the degree of satisfaction of patients and healthcare professionals. If the results are conclusive, the treatment offering at the CRIC may be reorganized so as to including a remote monitoring service.

 

Doctor Christine Poncet-Wallet
Head of ENT Department
The Cochlear Implant Adjustment Center (Centre de Réglage des Implants Cochléaires) (CRIC), ENT Department, Rothschild Hospital, AP-HP, Paris, France