The American Cochlear Implant Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to improving access to cochlear implants, will be hosting the Emerging Issues in Cochlear Implants Symposium on October 15 – 17, 2015 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.
The CI 2015 Symposium will discuss how cochlear implants (CIs) are now helping children and adults with a broader range of hearing issues, given expanded FDA guidelines and new CI and related technologies designed to preserve low frequency residual hearing and provide sound to those without a working auditory nerve (which traditional cochlear implants rely upon). The ACI Alliance says the event will explore how cochlear implants are bringing deaf children and adults closer to normal hearing.
Six Emerging Issues to be Explored:
- Auditory Brainstem Implants in Children
- Expanded Indications for Cochlear Implantation
- Literacy and Cochlear Implantation: Outcomes and Intervention Strategies Objective Measures for Cochlear Implantation
- Cochlear Implant Connectivity to Other Technologies
- Quality of Life and Cost-Effectiveness of Cochlear Implantation
According to the ACI Alliance, cochlear implants are underutilized and provided to only 8% of US individuals who could benefit. The six emerging issues being intensively explored at the event have the potential to expand access to this life-changing technology, such as providing cochlear implants to seniors who could benefit, allowing them to remain active and healthy. Part of the discussion will be how hearing loss is increasingly being linked to dementia in older adults, and how working age adults who receive hearing technology may remain in the workforce. Further, participants will discuss how deaf children who receive CIs at an early age often achieve age appropriate language and reading skills. In addition to these six issues, podium and poster presentations will address other wide-ranging topics in cochlear implantation and other implanted auditory devices.
The CI 2015 event will also explore the link between hearing restoration and neuroscience during a discussion on Saturday morning (October 17) by hearing scientists David Pisoni, PhD, Blake Wilson, PhD, and Fan-Gang Zeng, PhD. The discussion will be led by technology pioneer Vinton Cerf, PhD, who is considered one of the “Fathers of the Internet” and Google’s chief Internet evangelist.
Symposium participants will also hear from Craig Buchman, MD, chair of the ACI Alliance Board of Directors, and director of the UNC Hearing Center; and Donna Sorkin, executive director of ACI Alliance, and a cochlear implant recipient.
More information about the event may be found on the symposium website.
Source: ACI Alliance
