Clinical programming software to manage patient's data with a Cochlear implantat

Abstract

Auditory prostheses (AP) using Cochlear Implant System a.k.a bionic ears are widely used electronic devices that electrically stimulate the auditory nerve using an electrode array, surgically placed in the inner ear for patients suffering from severe to profound senosorineural deafness. The AP mainly contains an external Body Worn Speech Processor (BWSP) and an internal Implantable Receiver Stimulator (IRS). The BWSP receives an external sound or speech and generates encoded speech data bits for transmission to the IRS via a Radio Frequency transcutaneous link to excite the electrode array. After surgical placement of the electrode array in the inner ear, the BWSP should be fine-tuned to achieve the 80 to 100% speech reception abilities of the patient by an audiologist using Clinical Programming Software (CPS). The tuning process involves several tasks such as identifying the active electrode contacts, determining the detection and pain threshold of each active electrode, and loading these values into BWSP by reprogramming the BWSP. The main objective of this paper is to describe a simple personal-computer based, user-friendly CPS, which fine tunes the BWSP to achieve the best possible speech reception abilities of each patient and to perform post-operative fitting procedures by an audiologist. The CPS was developed to perform the post-operative fine tuning procedures such as (i) measurement of electrode tissue impedance, (ii) fitting to determine the hearing threshold and comfort levels for each active electrode, and (iii) reprogramming the speech processor using the identified threshold and comfort values. Finally, experimental results are presented.