Cochlear implant patients and quality of life.

During the last two decades, cochlear implants have been available for profoundly hearing-impaired patients who do not benefit from conventional hearing aids. The quality of life of these implantees has not been extensively studied, and has not been studied at all in Finland. To assess their quality of life, the Nottingham Health Profile questionnaire was sent to all adult implanted patients in Finland. Implantees tended to have more favourable average pain, emotional reaction and mobility indexes in each age group studied than the average population. Social-isolation seemed to be more common in the youngest and oldest age groups of implantees. Apparently, implantees are physically healthier than the average population. However, a bias caused by the strict selection of implant candidates cannot be excluded.

Cochllear implants and GSM phone.

Use of a telephone and GSM phones, in particular, was assessed by means of a postal interview sent to all adult Finnish implantees. The response rate was very high (87%). Fifty-one of the 61 respondents used a telephone and 27/61 also used a mobile phone, usually a digital phone. Two GSM phone models from Nokia (3110 and 6110) were tested with three different cochlear implant systems used by nine patients. Definite differences between the processors were found. Nucleus Spectra (two implantees) could not be used with any of the GSM phones under any test condition. Nucleus SPrint was incompatible with both GSM phone models in a poor field, while GSM phone model 6110 could be used in a good field. The Med-El Combi 40+ processor was compatible with both GSM models tested under any condition.