The Healing Power Of Laughter Essay Research

The Healing Power Of Laughter Essay, Research Paper

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;

the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

George Bernard Shaw

What is a Cochlear Implant and Why Does the Deaf Community Oppose It.

A cochlear implant is an electronic device designed to provide useful hearing and improved communication ability to individuals who are profoundly deaf. For those with profound hearing loss, hearing aids provide little, if any, benefit. The cochlear implant will not cure deafness. It, in my opinion, has much to offer to those deaf people who can be implanted.

The Deaf culture believes that this technology will have a significant impact on their culture. They are vehemently opposed to any deaf person, children especially, being “Cut open” to put something foreign into their body. Some deaf people look down on those deaf people who have had the implants, and consider them outsiders even traitors to their own culture.

What is the Cochlear Implant Comprised of and How Does it Work.

The cochlear implant consists of both internal and external components. The internal components are those that are implanted surgically under the skin behind the ear. The external parts include a battery-powered speech processor, worn on a belt, a pocket or a harness, a thin cable, and a headpiece (Dallas Otolaryngology 2-3).

The cochlear implant converts speech and sounds into electrical signals and sends these signals to the hearing nerve. The sound is sent from the microphone to the speech processor. The speech processor converts the sound into the most effective code for sound and speech understanding. The sound is processed and the electrically coded signal is sent back to the headpiece and that signal is then transmitted across the skin via radio waves to the implant. The implant receives the signal and delivers it to the array of electrodes positioned within the cochlea. Those electrodes stimulate the hearing nerve fibers within the cochlea causing electrical impulses to be delivered by the auditory nerve to the brain, which then interprets them as sound (MED-EL 1-2).

How Does the Ear Work.

There are four main parts of the ear that are involved in hearing. However, for this topic the only parts we are interested in are the inner ear and the central auditory system. The inner ear contains the balance system, the cochlea and the auditory nerve. The cochlea is filled with fluid and lined with thousands of tiny nerve cells, which convert sound vibrations into nerve signals. The central auditory system consists of the nerves, which carry the nerve signals to the brain where they are deciphered. In normal hearing sound waves enter the ear and move to the eardrum. Vibrations pass, from the eardrum, along the chain of bones in the middle ear to the fluid in the inner ear. The vibrating fluid moves the nerve cells, located in the cochlea, which convert the vibrations into nerve signals which then send the message to the auditory nerve and to the brain (Elaine 25).

Different Kinds of Hearing Loss.

There are three different types of hearing loss. There is the conductive hearing loss, the sensori-neural loss and the mixed. The conductive hearing loss is caused by a problem in the outer or middle ear. Most conductive hearing losses are medically or surgically treatable. However, these are not treatable with the cochlear implant. The sensori-neural hearing loss is caused by a problem in the inner ear or the auditory nerve. When damage occurs to the cochlea, sound may be distorted. In addition, the degree of hearing loss depends on how much damage there is and where, in the cochlea, it is located (N I D C D 3). Mixed hearing loss is a combination of both conductive and sensori-neural loss. When speaking about profound deafness we are usually talking about sensori-neural hearing loss, but sometimes this also applies to mixed hearing loss.

What is “Profoundly Deaf”.

A person is profoundly deaf when the sensory receptors of the inner ear, called hair cells, are damaged or diminished. Increasing the amplification of sounds does not enable the profoundly deaf ear to process sound. The cochlear implant bypasses damaged hair cells and directly stimulates the hearing nerves with electrical current, allowing individuals who are profoundly or totally deaf to receive sound (MED-EL 2).

A Brief History of the Cochlear Implant

The FDA approved the 3M/House cochlear implant for marketing in November of 1984. It was hailed as the first device ever approved to replace a human sense. This was done with lots of excitement and fanfare. The first implants that were made public were by Dijourno and Eyries in France in 1957. I remember a commercial that had a boy running out of his house and saying, “I can hear the wind!” and it seemed so wonderful. Now deaf people need only get an implant and they would be able to hear.

Progress

In the area of implants, technological progress has been slow. Moreover, this was not the only area that was slow to accept implants. It appears that those who were prominent in the research of speech coding and auditory psychophysics were also unwilling to experiment with the implants. In addition, it appears the ge

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