Pretoria - With more and more people going through life with hearing disabilities, cochlear implants are said to be the next step to alleviate hearing loss where hearing aids prove to be insufficient.
World Hearing Day takes place tomorrow, and in this regard the University of Pretoria said it understood and recognised that cochlear implants were not for everyone. A transdisciplinary research team is hard at work to customise each device and enhance the benefit for users.
The World Health Organization estimated that in 2020 more than 5% of people, or about 466 million people, suffered from disabling hearing loss, and most lived in low- and middle-income countries such as South Africa.
“The detrimental effect of untreated hearing loss crosses generations. Elderly people may experience social isolation, depression, reduced quality of life and loss of independence and mobility, while a young adult may have lower income-earning potential, or even be excluded from employment, compared with individuals with normal hearing.
“Cochlear implantation is a well-established treatment option for individuals who receive insufficient benefit from hearing aids. Cochlear implantation bypasses damaged hair cells in the cochlea and stimulates the auditory nerve fibres electrically,” the institution said, adding that before this invasive step was taken it was worth assessing whether significant improvement in hearing was possible.
“The University of Pretoria team’s research tries to understand how cochlear implantation should be designed and customised to provide functional hearing to a user. They do this through computational modelling, a non-invasive method to observe and investigate the auditory system when subjected to electrical stimulation to a level of detail that is impossible via experimental procedures in live cochlear implantation users.”
They said this unique, virtually invasive window into the auditory system could help customise the cochlear implantation for a specific user, and unravel the underlying mechanisms that complicate some cases.
“The team’s transdisciplinary approach investigates the unique relationship between electric stimulus and auditory perception on a case-by-case basis. There is an interplay among highly sophisticated technology, delicate surgery to integrate the technology with the sensorineural system inside the cochlea, the response of the sensorineural system to the electric stimuli and therapy to facilitate hearing rehabilitation.”
Professors Johan Hanekom and Tania Hanekom, along with Dr Werner Badenhorst of the Bioengineering Research Group in UP’s Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, work in the niche field of three-dimensional (3D), person-specific computational modelling of cochlear implantation to understand and predict how individuals have different hearing outcomes.
At the root of these models lies an accurate geometric description of the cochlea and its surrounding structures that, for live cochlear implantation users, needs to be derived from low-resolution clinical images.
The research done by Dr René Baron of the Department of Anatomy in the Faculty of Health Sciences aims to develop techniques to quantify the cochlear geometry, thereby providing parameters for the construction of the 3D models being developed by the Bioengineering Research Group.
The university said: “The models can be used at a basic scientific level, which involves probing the underlying mechanisms of electrically stimulated hearing, or at a translational level, where researchers and clinicians can join forces to manage complications associated with cochlear implantation.
“Dr Talita le Roux of the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology provides the clinical research interface with cochlear implantation users who participate in validation studies or are referred to the research team when complications with their cochlear implantation cannot be resolved.
“A cochlear implantation recipient’s managing audiologist and ear, nose and throat surgeon provide clinical data and support the investigations,” it added.
A number of connections with cochlear implantation programmes across South Africa have been established on this basis and the collaboration led to the formation of the crossfaculty Cochlear Implant Research Interest Group, an informally organised group of academics and researchers at UP with a common interest in the dynamic and transdisciplinary field of cochlear implantation.
“The focus on person-specific, high-fidelity representation of the detailed cochlear anatomy in these models is unique in the world, thus contributing significantly to understanding how cochlear implantation functions on a person-specific level.
“The team is one of only a handful of international research teams contributing to this field.”
Pretoria News