toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio

After 25 years of progressive hearing loss, Michael Baker was frightened by his own voice - which he has never liked - and disconcerted by the Star Wars sounds.

"I could hear, and it was pretty weird," the 60-year-old Sylvania man said. "It was like you were in outer space, and R2-D2 was talking to you."

The outer-space sounds soon subsided, however, leaving Mr. Baker able to again discern the television, co-workers during meetings, conversations in crowded restaurants, and even crickets. In June, Mr. Baker received a cochlear implant in his left ear from Dr. Aaron Benson, who made offering the surgery a priority when the otolaryngologist and neurotologist came to Toledo three years ago.

"I have absolutely no complaints," said Mr. Baker, a financial consultant at BeaconFinancial in Sylvania Township. "It's just amazing to me."

Michael Baker had a cochlear implant surgically placed in his left ear at St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee in June.
( THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY )

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About 25,000 Americans have cochlear implants, but residents of northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan had to travel outside of the area before Dr. Benson started offering the surgery. So far, Dr. Benson, of Toledo Ear, Nose and Throat and Toledo Audiology, has placed cochlear implants in about 10 patients, and he estimates there is enough area demand to do a couple of the surgeries a month.

Unlike hearing aids, which are used to amplify sounds, cochlear implants mimic the inner ear's function by sending sound to the hearing nerve. Cochlear implant candidates must be profoundly deaf and unable to benefit from hearing aids, Dr. Benson said.

Dr. Benson performs the cochlear implant surgeries at St. Luke's Hospital in Maumee, St. Anne Mercy Hospital in Toledo, and St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo. The surgical procedure is done at about 250 hospitals nationwide.

With a cochlear implant similar to the one Mr. Baker received, an external sound processor captures sounds, which are synthesized into digital information and transmitted to an internal implant. The implant converts the digital information into electrical signals, sends them to an electrode array curled inside the ear's cochlea, and they stimulate the hearing nerve so the brain perceives sound, according Cochlear Ltd., his implant's manufacturer.

An exterior portion of Michael Baker’s cochlear implant is held onto his head above an interior part magnetically.
( THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY )

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"Our brain literally learns a new language," Dr. Benson said.

Patients heal for about a month after surgery before their implants are activated, and they work with an audiologist and other professionals to adjust. Mr. Baker has a second external sound processor he can use if needed with a cell phone, an MP3 player, and other electronics.

"The surgery itself gave me absolutely no trouble," Mr. Baker said. "That was nothing. The anticipation was waiting the 30 days, 35 days, to get it hooked up."

Mr. Baker started wearing hearing aids 25 years ago, upgrading them every three to four years until they no longer compensated for the loss, he said. He was having so much trouble hearing he let unexpected phone calls go to voicemail and asked his wife, Kate, or a co-worker to listen to them, he said.

Now the sound of their dog's toenails on the floor "drives him crazy," Mrs. Baker said.

"We never realized it would work this well and this quickly," she said.

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VIEW: How cochlear implants work (graphic)

To be an ideal candidate, adults should have been able to hear and learned how to speak before they became profoundly deaf, Dr. Benson said.

They must have tried hearing aids for at least six months and have undergone other testing, he added.

Such trials help determine whether a patient's hearing loss is based in the cochlea, said audiologist Julie Yeater of Toledo Audiology, who works with Dr. Benson.

After cochlear implants are activated, an audiologist works with patients over a six-month period to retest and intensify hearing as patients develop more tolerance, Ms. Yeater said. Speech therapy also is important for both adults and children, she said.

"You're just not hearing the same way," Ms. Yeater said. "It's electrical, it's not acoustic. It's just different."

Dr. Benson said he has at least three infant patients awaiting cochlear implants, which they ideally should receive in their first year. They can be mainstreamed in school by kindergarten, he said.

"We want to get auditory stimulation as soon as possible," Dr. Benson said.

He added of suddenly hearing: "When we activate kids, a lot of times they cry because it's overwhelming."

Contact Julie M. McKinnon at:
jmckinnon@theblade.com
or 419-724-6087.

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