Waisman Center Day with the Experts

Every year the Waisman Center at UW-Madison has a day with the experts on cochlear implants. We went a few years ago and it was really fascinating so we went again this year. Basically, there are several talks by researchers and audiologists that explain the state of the current research. They also have a panel of clinicians and implant recipients for the audience to ask questions. 

This year we had a new perspective since Dan's surgery is just over a month away! I think the main thing we learned this time is to trust the process and I think we're a little more confident now. One of the talks was on listening effort and how people with hearing aids must put forth much more effort and cognitive resources when listening than people with normal hearing.  This is mentally exhausting, reducing your ability to perform other tasks and ultimately affecting your quality of life. The implant has been shown to reduce the amount of listening effort.

Another big issue we've been thinking about is music. We've been told that the cochlear implant reduces your ability to appreciate music compared to hearing aids. This is because the implant only has a certain number of channels through which it processes sound and isn't as complex as normal acoustical hearing, which means that a lot of times you'll hear sounds like Minnie Mouse and Darth Vader with not much variation in between. 

It's a trade off. With the implant you can discern speech better, but you won't get those subtle variations in pitch which makes listening to music so enjoyable. The further you get into the cochlear the lower the pitch is (as the picture below depicts), but the electrode that is inserted during surgery can't reach the inner most part of the cochlear, therefore typical recipients hear everything in a higher pitch, making everything sound "digital" and ultimately making music sound a little weird. 

While Dan would be giving up some music appreciation, he would be gaining all the higher frequencies that he has never been able to hear. Things like the smoke detector, timers, even when the car beeps to let you know someone isn't buckled up - he'll be able to hear these higher pitches that he's never heard before. Hearing the smoke alarm alone makes the surgery worth it to us.