Category Archives: Events

Man to bicycle over 10,000 miles to raise $1,000,000 for cochlear implant charities

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Jacob Landis, a cochlear implant recipient at age 10, is combining his loves of baseball, bicycling, and cochlear implant advocacy to raise one million dollars for cochlear implant charities this summer.

Jacob will bicycle around North America this summer stopping at all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums, raising cochlear implant awareness at the same time as he raises funds.  You can join Jacob at a game, or ride part of the route with him!  He has already accrued an impressive list of corporate sponsors in addition to private donations.

Congratulations in advance to Jacob!  You’ve already achieved a tremendous amount before you even get on your bike for the first leg!

Happy New Ear Campaign in Ireland

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Parents at Beaumont Hospital in Ireland have started a campaign to try and get health care coverage for bilateral implants for their children.  We first reported the single implant per child last month here.

Now these parents have created a video letter to the Minister of Health to plead their case.

IEEE Article on Cochlear Implant Design

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The Circuits and Systems society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers has published an article about the engineering challenges in cochlear implant design.  While you won’t learn how to build your own implant with paper clips and rubber bands, it is a nice explanation of how the cochlea works and how cochlear implants interface with the biological system.

Read more at:

Engineering Challenges in Cochlear Implants, Design and Practice

Half-Price Nammu Swim Hat Color of the Week

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Nammu has announced a color-of-the-week campaign.  Each week a color is chosen for sale at half price!  Wait for your favorite color to come around, and stock up!  This week’s color is purple.

nammu sun protection with confidence and style

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CI surgery robotThere have been many advances in robotic surgery in the past decade.  These robots are controlled by surgeons, and have better fine motor control than an unassisted surgeon looking through a microscope.  The promise of robotic cochlear implant surgery includes better electrode array placement, less invasive surgery, and reduced damage to residual hearing.

Robot for Cochlear Implant Surgery

50 Free Cochlear Implants in Pakistan This Year

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50 Free Cochlear Implants in Pakistan This Year

In a stunning move, the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in Pakistan, along with the London-based International Medical Relief Agency (IMRA), will be offering free cochlear implants to 50 lucky children this year.

Toddler Cochlear Implant Story

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Mason Henoch gets a cochlear implant at Cleveland Clinic. The video does a nice job of describing cochlear implants. Not captioned.

Nammu Swim Hat

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Use the Nammu Swim Hat to go swimming with your cochlear implant processor!

The Aqua Accessory from Cochlear, and the aLOKSAK bag from, well, LOKSAK, are waterproof bags that can protect your BTE cochlear implant processor from water damage. Unfortunately, the bags can come off pretty easily if you jump in the pool or do just about anything at a water park.

The Nammu Swim Hat is a stylish way to secure your processor to your head. Our resourceful friend Ben demonstrates how to use the Nammu Swim Hat.

  • The Nammu Hat is comfortable!  It’s easy to put on, and doesn’t tug at your hair when you take it off.
  • While the Aqua Accessory is designed to sit on your ear, it can be rotated up so that it is completely under the Nammu Hat.  Just make sure to keep the headpiece magnet in the correct location.  This prevents water from getting underneath it and pulling the whole assembly off.
  • The aLOKSAK bag doesn’t sit on your ear at all, so it has to go under the Nammu Swim Hat.

The hats used in the video were generously provided by Nammu.

Many thanks to the Leventhal-Sidman JCC for the use of the pool to create the video.

Irish Children Don’t Receive Bilateral Coverage

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Deaf babies in Ireland enjoy a head start, frequently getting a cochlear implant at 7 months.  However, the Health Services Executive does not provide funding for bilateral implants.  Read about the struggle in the Irish Examiner.

Patent Application Filed for Hearing Instrument Controller

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patent application figure 4Our own Howard Samuels has filed a patent application for an inertial sensor-based hearing instrument controller.

A sensor in the processor or hearing aid replaces some or all of the typical controls, such as power switch, volume, and program selection.  By sensing motion, finger taps, or presses on the device, the power can turn on and off automatically, and the user can make adjustments without using any switches or knobs.

By eliminating the usual mechanical controls, the device can be made smaller, more reliable, and more waterproof.

Read about it on NewsRX.com!