Habib-Ur Rahman “It was only my left ear that was impacted, so I was managing until one day fluid started oozing out from that ear and a sharp pain. I went to the hospital, underwent many tests. Initially, they tried medication, but when that failed, in October 2020, I had to undergo a surgery for the perforations in my inner ear. By God’s grace, I no longer suffer from any pain. I can hear well too,” Rahman said.
Doctors in Dubai say there are many others like Rahman who complain of progressive hearing loss as a result of exposure to high decibels of noise. Progressive hearing loss is said to impact one in four people worldwide, but the good news is that timely medical intervention can avert deafness and even restore the sense of hearing in as many as 90 per cent people.
their youngest son bret is 2 and has normal hearing like his parents. but caden was born without the part of the ear that converts nerve impulses to sound. without that, a cochlear implant would be no help. so from the start, they learned sign language. they figured it would be the only way caden would communicate. then danielle heard of another option. it was random. i was just talking to a friend and she was like, i think they re doing avis in the u.s. now. it stands for auditory brain stem implant. i like calling it a bionic ear. mark krieger at children s hospital in los angeles. in conjunction with usc s school of medicine, a clinical trial was started in 2014 to perform
The brainstem to audio waves. he s the first child in the u.s. to receive an auditory brainstem implant and as you can see, it worked. his parents are thrilled and tell cnn grayson loves music. the family of a 7-year-old georgia boy could not afford costly new hearing implants for him. then a viewer saw their story right here on cnn and he made it his mission to help. cnn s george howell tells us more. when your teacher turns away from the class and turns to the board, can you hear her? no. why? because when i don t have my hearing aid on and somebody is t turned away from me, i don t know what they re saying. how does that make you feel? sad. when talking to 7-year-old hayden mckenzie, you have got to speak up. so i can hear. reporter: hayden has one used
We don t know exactly what he hears, if he hears everything we hear, some of what we hear. reporter: doctors are confident grayson will eventually hear and speak like any other child. his parents say he s already made great progress, although they won t soon forget what that first moment was like. hi grayson. talk to him, daddy. daddy loves you. daddy loves you. yes, hear. i can t stop watching that video. so fun to see his expression as he hears his dad s voice for the first time. let me show you something quickly. first of all, we re not talking specific lish about a cochlear implant. that s something that s been around for some time, but rather something known as an auditory brain stem implant. you saw the microphone that was sort of outside grayson s ear. it takes sound, distills it down. typically what would happen is a nerve would take that and transmit to it the brain stem. it s that nerve that is gone in
The case of grayson. instead, the doctor essentially put an implant that goes straight to where that sound should go. it s called the cochlear nucleus. it s on the brain stem. you don t need to remember the names here. essentially they re recreating part of the central nervous system so he can take that sound and actually hear. now, the goal obviously is to see how much sense he can make of that sound. we know he s listening to music and will turn it up when he sees the radio or something like that. the doctors are very optimistic he ll be able to process that sound, understand it, turn in the language and start expressing himself in that way as well. that was the goal for them. so far it looks like it s working. he s the first kid in the country to have an auditory brain stem implant. there are nine more children who have been approved for this. we ll keep an eye on it, fred. back to you. that is incredible. thanks so much, dr. sanjay gupta. mission accomplished. what a sweet, sweet