The Nottingham charity in Wales England, An Ear Foundation warmly welcomes the release of NICE guidance supporting cochlear implantation for deaf children and adults.

After a detailed two year appraisal process, NICE has come out firmly in favor of cochlear implantation, pioneered by The Ear Foundation in Nottingham England. It paves the way for thousands of deaf children and adults who do not get sufficient benefit from hearing aids to receive cochlear implants. NICE's recommendation ensure that this widens access to this life changing procedure, giving the option for access to hearing for all.

The NICE recommendation opens the door for deaf adults to receive cochlear implants without difficulties in funding. Children will now be offered cochlear implants in both ears at a very young age thus maximising their potential for improved communication skills, speech and language, and improving educational and employment opportunities.

This follows our long campaign, with other voluntary bodies, to ensure that deaf adults and parents of young deaf children have the option to choose a cochlear implant, and we are delighted that NICE has listened to the evidence and views presented by the charities and user groups involved in the campaign.

2009 saw the 20th anniversary of the UK's first multi-channel cochlear implant being given to Michael Batt, deafened by meningitis <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/9276.php>, in Nottingham and funded by The Ear Foundation. His mother Marion Batt welcomed NICE's guidance: "Twenty years ago we had an agonising wait while supporters in the community raised funds to obtain an implant for Michael and we are delighted that future families will not have this added pressure. NICE's decision means that the current generation of deaf children can now look forward to a much brighter future with easier access to the hearing world, better educational outcomes and improved job prospects."

A cochlear implant is a two-part electronic device that is surgically implanted in the patient's inner ear. Sound is picked up by an external processor that converts it into an electrical signal. This electrical signal directly stimulates the hearing nerves and passed to the brain where it is perceived as sound.

The Ear Foundation is the Nottingham-based charity that introduced cochlear implants for children to the UK in 1989. It now provides a bridge between the clinic-based services where implants are fitted, and home, school and work where they are used in everyday life. They provide an internationally recognised program of family and user support and information, continuing education program for all professionals, and family and user-focused research program.

More electrodes and a thinner, more flexible wire inserted further into the inner ear could improve conventional cochlear implants, a team of Medical College of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology researchers say.

Candidates for cochlear implants - an estimated million in the United States alone - include children and adults with profound deafness in both ears. An implant does not restore normal hearing but simulates sounds in the environment, including speech. More electrodes pick up more external sound and the flexible wire allows those sounds to be transmitted over more of the auditory nerves.

Researchers presented their findings about the new device at the 11th International Conference on Cochlear Implants and Other Auditory Implantable Technology in Stockholm, Sweden June 30 - July 3.

The snail-shaped cochlea is difficult to access, particularly considering the multiple components involved in a cochlear implant, said Dr. Brian McKinnon, assistant professor of neurotology/otology in the Department of Otolaryngology in the MCG School of Medicine. Those components include of an external microphone, speech processor and transmitter and an internal group of electrodes arranged on a thin wire that stimulate the auditory nerve.

"The wire in traditional implants is fragile and thin and may buckle," he said. "We try to get it as far into the center of the cochlea, where the nerves are bundled, as possible - the idea being that the more electrodes on the nerves, the better the sound."

Because they buckle, physicians typically can't optimally insert the wire, and electrodes can, in some cases, injure the cochlea, he said.

The new device, called the thin film array, pairs 12 electrodes on a thinner, more flexible wire. The wire's thinness has, so far, allowed surgeons to place more electrodes into the cochlea than they could with a conventional electrode. With more electrodes than standard models, the implant improves the quality of sound.

The array was developed in the Biosystems Interface Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology by Assistant Professor Pamela Bhatti, a biomedical engineer, and Georgia Tech student Jessica Falcone. McKinnon and Dr. Kenneth Iverson, a third-year otolaryngology resident, tested it on cadaver models

"This device could mean a several-fold improvement of the sound's resolution," Iverson said. "For the patient, it would be like the difference between hearing a Bach concerto played by a music box versus a quartet."

McKinnon compared the improvement to adding more fingers and more notes to a piano performance.

There are other benefits too.

"Because the thinner wire means less trauma to the ear, it could also mean more preservation of residual hearing for patients," Iverson said.