The quality of life in cochlear implant children after two years from surgery and its impact on the family

• Main Authors: Seyed Basir Hashemi, Leyla Monshizadeh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mashhad University of Medical Sciences 2010-06-01
• Series: Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology
• Subjects: Child; Cochlea; Implantation
• Online Access: http://ijorl.mums.ac.ir/?_action=showPDF&article=387&_ob=4574cae6af49574c2207c01cdee60085&fileName=full_text.pdf

Introduction: Cochlear implant has been established as effective option in rehabilitation of individuals with profound hearing impairment. As much of the studies about cochlear implants concentrated on aspects of speech perception and production, so we decided to study the quality of life of pre-lingual deaf children after at least 2 years of implantation. Materials and Methods: Twenty four patients’ parents in Fars Center were selected that had been implanted for at least 2 years and they filled the quality of life questionnaire. Three months later this questionnaire was filled again and results of two stages were analyzed. Results: In part of assessments p-value shows significant change in parent’s satisfaction. They believe that they can be beneficial for their children and in another part of this study, parents believe that the children communicate better, but still they need special care to do school homework and they have some difficulties in articulation. Conclusion: cochlear implantation is associated with improvement in quality of life. The improvement is significant in aspects of social communications and happiness.