International criteria for cochlear implants when there is some hearing on one side

[RoseRodent]

I am trying to help out some friends all in the same situation. Whilst all the evidence seems to say binaural hearing is always superior, they have all been told that while their child can take any benefit at all from a hearing aid on either ear they cannot go forward for implant assessment. I am sure I have heard of people in other parts of the world having a hearing aid on one side and an implant on the other. They are trying to establish to what extent it is a funding decision or if the criteria are based on failure to benefit. Interestingly, criteria have just been changed to allow for fully funded binaural implants, but if you have a child who has one profound ear which gets nothing from hearing aids and one "severe" ear which can be aided then implants are off the table.

Is this the case worldwide, or do others have access to implants for children or adults with one aidable ear?

[sammarcko]

I doubt it's worldwide. For instance I think the UK NHS allows only 1 implant regardless at this stage. I would imagine any funding criteria to be a regional territorial decision. The UK is not the US etc.
It makes no sense anyway that if one child got one ear that could be aided not be considered for bilteral because aided ear might amplify useless sounds anyway. Remember one of the criteria for determining an implant is speech recognition scores and if those are below a certain threshold in the aided ear the child qualifies for CI. Pre-lingual is another matter altogether. Very young children and babies...no idea.

[xbulder]

This is a topic hot and still in debate. I read in the Hearing reviewed that 60%
of all the papers related to cochlear implants cover the topic of binaural benefits.
There is a interesting paper which says that a contralateral stimulation via Hearing aids
actually improves spontaneous speech productions compare to cochlear implants.
I dont think there is an actual consensus- I would read the Hearing review (The is a best of articles issues).

[sonor/zildjian]

I know a lot of people wearing a HA on one side an a CI on the other side. Then in my region there are many bilateral implants, but that's because our health service pays them A LOOOOOOOOT...they also get most of the BATTERIES for the implant- for free.
All the natonal health services all over the world is looking to the FDA as reference when it comes to such cases...except the person who will get an implant is part of a scientific study (many of the people i know are part of a study)...just google the manchester ABI project or what Prof. Colletti does in Verona, Italy or Prof. Lenarz in Hannover, Germany. They all have their own evaluation program...but watch the development in the HA sector...first people where fitted on the better ear, now on both ears, there are HA with binaural processing ecc. This all will be introduced also for CI...

[Deaf123]

To qualify for a CI, the worse ear must be at 50% sentences or less and the better ear at 60% or less. What's the point of a CI if the good ear hears with a HA equal or better than a CI anyway? That person might not even bother wearing the CI then as it's bulky, eats batteries and inconvinent vs. the HA in the good ear. Also not everyone is successful in getting used to a bimodel approach.

I know here in the UK, you cant even been considered for the tests if you dont have a severe or profound hearing loss.

She maybe able to get both done if she is unable to pick up enough speech but it maybe different in the US.