Ear Implant Results Highlighted in Sancti Spiritus

Paz Cordoves highlighted the social significance and the integrating character of the program, with which 165 Cubans have been benefited so far.

The expert praised the professionalism of local surgeons, rehabilitation staff and teachers who are responsible for the patients, including minors.

The president of the Cuban Society of Otolaryngology announced the First Cuban-IberoAmerican Symposium on Ear Implants and Related Sciences to be held by the end of October in Havana, with the expected attendance of Spain, France, Argentina and Poland, among other nations.

Cuban specialists from the Center of Neurosciences were the first to initiate this ear implant treatment in the country, after being trained abroad. There are some 15 000 deaf people in Cuba, besides some other 800 who suffer from eye and ear impairment at the same time.

The ear implant procedure depends on a casuistic examination of each patient. Aspects like the kind of deafness, the impossibility to get benefit from another type of device, the physical and psychical conditions of the person as well as the patient’s conviction to get better with the treatment are taken into consideration.

Cuban patients receive a free-of-charge treatment, including the implant. The surgical procedure, which costs nearly 60 000 US dollars, includes the insertion of electrodes in the internal ear and then a computerized stimulation.

The operation, which lasts several hours, allows a slow rehabilition of the ear. It performed in the section of the brain connected with the less damaged ear.

According to experts, the current chip can identify between 16 and 31 stimulation channels localized in the internal ear and can send electrical signals to the brain which the patient learn to manage. That’s why the rehabilitation treatment is so long and complex. 

Los pacientes logran familiarizarse con el equipo a los tres meses de la primera programación; sin embargo, podrán articular las primeras palabras a más de un año de recibir los beneficios de esta operación.

The patients get familiar with the device three months after the first programing, nevertheless, they won’t be able to articulate the first words until one year after the operation.