Overview
The cochlear implant unit was established on January,2012
It consists mainly of three specialties:
- Otology consultants.
- Audiology doctors.
- Speech& language pathologists.
The aim of this unit:
1. Early diagnosis and treatment of prelingual hearing loss cases.
2. Early diagnosis and treatment of all cases of post lingual hearing loss.
3. Universal new born hearing screening program at King Fahad university hospital.
4. Provision of all types of implantable hearing devices according to the type and the degree of hearing loss.
5. Annual educational courses and workshops {to residents and young consultants} on ear surgery, cochlear implant surgery and surgery of all recent implantable hearing devices.
6. Conduction and publish research in the international specialized journals.
7. Active contribution in the international conferences.
8. Establish a fellowship program on otology and neurotology.
9. Conduct annual educational campaign on the importance of early diagnosis of hearing loss and early treatment.
10. Establish a habilitation unit with highly specialized speech and language pathologists on cochlear implant patients.
11. Establish a unit to provide spare parts.
12. Try our best to provide bilateral implants to each patient.
13. Working actively on increasing the number of the cochlear implant staff to be able to accommodate the increasing numbers of patients.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS UNIT:
- Expectation of eastern region population in 2020 would be: 5,347,881*.
- 27% are between the age of 0-14 years [1443927].
- Jamal et al study on 2002 showed, the prevalence of hearing impairment in children in S.A. was 13% (0.83% severe, 2.42% moderate, and 9.75% mild). The prevalence of hearing impairment was significantly higher in children whose parents were either first cousins or relatives.
- Most likely we will have almost 86000 children with severe to profound hearing loss
- This group of children if were diagnosed and treated during the first 6-18 months of age, they are going to develop almost normal hearing enable them to join normal stream of education and become normal producing individual in our society.
- One of the most important factors to reduce the number of congenital hearing loss is society education to reduce or eliminate consanguinity.
- Treating post lingual hearing loss for any age is a gold standard of an educated, healthy and civilized society which is one of the main visions of 2030.
Patient Care
Cochlear implant unit take care of all patients with hearing loss that hearing aids do not provide them with serviceable hearing discrimination, this includes cochlear implants, bone anchored hearing devices and active middle ear implants.
The unit work does not end by doing the surgery, our commitments to all our patients are lifelong commitments, which include the followings.
- Programming the devices.
- Habilitations of the patients.
- Providing the spare parts of these devices.
- Dealing with complications.
- Continuous medical education to patients and their families.
- Provide access to any medical facility the patient might need before, during or after the surgery such as; psychiatrists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, pediatricians, internists or radiologists.
The cochlear implant unit always use the latest technology and the latest devices with Saudi FDA approval
Unite Courses and Activities
Provision continuous medical education to both medical staff and society.
1. The unite is conducting annual courses and hands on workshops on.
- The basic and advanced mastoid and middle ear surgery
- Cochlear implant surgery
- Bone anchored devices surgery
- Active middle ear implant surgery
These courses are conducted to the trainee residents in the ORL specialty (Saudi & Gulf) in addition to young specialists& consultants.
2. The unite is conducting annual campaign and program about hearing disability and its impact on the individual and the society, where the importance of early diagnosis and treatment is well stressed.
3. Implementation of the universal hearing screening program in our hospital (on January ,2014) in order to have early diagnosis &intervention.
4. The members of the unite contribute actively to all such activities in other hospitals, cities and countries.
5. The cochlear implant unite is research oriented and publishing its research in international journals [ OTOLOGY NEUROTOLOGY JOURNAL, PEDIATRIC ORL JOURNAL, …………., ……….] in an average one per year.
Division Accomplishment and Achievement
The cochlear implant unit accomplishments divided into the followings:
- Surgeries
- Newborn screening
- Courses & workshops
- Published research
- Society education
Surgeries
We have done more than 300 cochlear implantation surgeries, 93.4% children with very good results.
Newborn Screening
- An average of 1440 infants screened per year
- An average of 15 infants are fail and referred to further audiological investigations and management according to the hearing problem which ranges from mild to profound deafness.
Courses & workshops
- We established one of the best temporal bone laboratories in the middle east which consist of 15 permanent stations with permanent microscopes. We are using either real temporal bone or fresh frozen heads, our courses were in collaboration with PORTMAN INSTITUTE IN BORDEAUX FRANCE.
- We have received the KARL STORZ AWARD for excellence in education on 2017.
- We conducted 18 TBDC & workshops and 10 cochlear implant & implantable hearing devices workshops.
- We have conducted 4 basic and advanced workshops on cochlear implant audiology and programming
- We have conducted 3 basic and advanced workshops on speech rehabilitation for cochlear implant patients.
PUBLISHED RESEARCH
- Effect of cochlear implant electrode array design on auditory nerve and behavioral response in children L.Telmesani, N. Said, Published in international Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 2015; 79: 660–665.
- Electric Auditory Brainstem Response (E-ABR) in Cochlear Implant Children: Effect of age at implantation and duration of implant use. L.Telmesani, N. Said. Egyptian journal of Ear, Nose, Throat and allied science 2015; 16:145– 150.
- Electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) in cochlear implant children: Changes in auditory nerve response in first year of cochlear implant use. L.Telmesani, N. Said, International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology 2016; 82: 28–33.
- Telmesani Radiological Classification of the Location of the Vertical Segment of the Facial Nerve: Impact on Surgical Approach in Cochlear Implant Surgery. L.Telmesani, M. Alramah, Otol Neurotol 2017 Oct;38(9):e335-e338
- Vertebral artery compression of medulla oblongata causing isolated symptom of dizziness: two case reports Mahmoud M. Mahrous1,2* and Ibrahim A. Busaad, The Egyptian Journal of Otolaryngology.
- Vestibular migraine and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, close presentation dilemma, Mahmoud M. Mahrous,Acta Otolaryngologica vol 140, 2020
- Central positional Nystagmus: A systematic Literature Review, Nora K. Macdonald1*, Diego Kaski2, Yougan Saman1, Amal Al-Shaikh Sulaiman2,3, Amal Anwer2 and Doris-Eva Bamiou1, Frontiers in neurology, April,2017
- Dual tasking interferes with dynamic balance in young and old healthy adults, Amal Al-Shaikh Sulaimana, Marie Kellyb,∗, Mairead O’Connorc, Doris Eva-Bamioud,e,f and Marousa Pavloug Physiotherapy practice and research, accepted May 2020
Society education
- We have conducted 3 educational events for patients, their families & society
- Contribute in ALJANADRIAH with educational video about cochlear implant
- We conducted two TV interviews about the importance of hearing and cochlear implantation: MBC, SAUDIA CHANNEL ONE.
Faculty
The staff in cochlear implant unite are the followings;
Surgeons:
- Prof. Laila Al-Telmesani. [head of the unit]
- Dr. Abulaziz alshaygi
- Dr. Reda Al-Rumaih
- Dr. Mona Al-Ramah
Audiologists:
- Prof. Nethreen M Said
- Dr. Amal Al-shaikh
- Dr. Mahmoud Mahrous
- Mrs. Samar Al-Aswad
Speech and Language Pathologist:
- Mrs. Samira Ashoor
- Mrs. Maria Sonboul
- Ms. Fatimah Alshaikh
