Aim: Untreated hearing loss is risk factor for dementia, depression and falls in the elderly population. The present study evaluated the outcomes of cochlear implantation in adults over age 85, including surgical outcomes, speech perception, and implant use.
Methods: Retrospective chart review of 78 patients implanted at a tertiary academic medical center. Co-morbidities, pre-operative hearing thresholds and speech perception scores at 4 time points (pre-operative, and 3 months, 1, 2, and 3 years post-operatively) were collected from charts. Linear mixed models were used to account for missing data points.
Results: Medical comorbidities such as hypertension (56%) and heart disease (53%) were common. Surgical complications were rare (5% or less) and minor. Local anesthesia was used for 71% of study patients implanted in the last three years. Significant improvements were seen for speech perception scores on monosyllabic words (37 percentage points), sentences in quiet (45 percentage points) and sentences in noise (28 percentage points). These improvements remained stable to at least two years post-activation. Seventy-one percent of patients wore their implant full time.
Conclusion: Cochlear implantation is safe and effective for very elderly adults. The use of local anesthesia may increase adoption of cochlear implantation and thus improve the quality of life for this population.
Keywords: Cochlear implantation; Hearing loss; Speech perception.