Cochlear implant in prelingually deafened oralist adults: speech perception outcomes, subjective benefits and quality of life improvement

The aim of this study is to report our results in a group of prelingually deafened adults, who followed an oralist rehabilitation programme, and submitted to cochlear implant at our institution. We evaluated 30 prelingually deafened adult patients, 18 males and 12 females, median age 35 years, of a group of 36 prelingually deafened adult patients consecutively submitted to unilateral cochlear implantation at the ENT Unit of the University of Pisa. After implantation, patients achieved significant benefits in terms of speech perception skills, including the ability to have telephone conversations in some cases, quality of life and their own perception of disability. According to literature data, the results herein reported are quite variable but generally satisfactory. Procedures other than traditional speech perception measures should be used to evaluate the benefits of cochlear implant in such patients, to compressively evaluate the global benefits, not only in terms of speech perception, but also in terms of quality of life and daily life.