CIICA LIVE: Adult CI Rehabilitation: What is needed?

cochlear implantation should only take place ” where the supportive infrastructure for rehabilitation therapy exists.” WHO, World Report on Hearing, P100

Although the WHO recognises that rehabilitation is vital, the topic of Adult CI Rehabilitation is often ignored. Lifelong services are needed to ensure lifelong use and benefit. This CIICA LIVE event explored these services from the perspective of users and of those who provide them. We also need to remember that children have the habit of becoming adults…. as Bowen reminds us.

There was lively discussion which you can see in the videos – clearly the term Rehabilitation doesn’t describe what is needed in CI lifelong services – and clearly user and family groups providing peer support are key. And the technology is not straightforward. As Darja said:

CI users are not usually technical experts. and we just don’t know how to use the the options we have. … no one explains it so us and it is not so simple. …. it can be complicated..

Robert challenged us with thinking about lifelong services – if an infant is implanted today – they can expect 100 years of CI use… who is planning ahead for that?

And Bowen, implanted as a child: because everything was taken care for me as I was growing up, I didn’t develop the awareness about my implant and what I needed to do to be responsible for the life-time care.

For more info, please see the programme here

The captioned videos of each presentation is below:

Sue Archbold: Rehabilitation, What are we Talking About? Sue challenges us to think about the word rehabilitation – what are we talking about?

Harald Seidler, Adult CI Rehabilitation in Germany. Harald, an ENT specialist and an implant user, describes the holistic approach to rehabilitation and its goals.

Robert Mandara, Lifelong Care Begins at the End: the importance of lifelong services for adults and children

Darja Pajk, Just managing the technology? Darja talks about the challenges of managing CI technology and her own challenges.

Sally Harvest, an implant user and an advisor to WHO and CBM, discusses approaches to Aural Rehabilitation.

Bowen, the President of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing Young People, talks about the challenges of receiving an implant in childhood, and as a young adult, learning to take ownership of it.