News Excerpt:

The Command Hospital Pune performed two successful piezoelectric bone conduction hearing implants, making it the first government hospital in the country to do the medical operations.

What is a piezoelectric bone conduction hearing implant?

• An active piezoelectric bone conduction hearing implant system is an implantable medical electronic device for hearing-impaired patients with conductive loss (including aural atresia), mixed hearing loss, and single-sided deafness.
• The cost of the equipment has always been a concern, limiting its outreach.
• Aural Atresia: Aural atresia is when a baby is born without an ear canal. The baby's eardrum either didn't form normally or is missing. 

Significance of the procedure:

• Some patients with conductive/ mixed hearing loss or patients with single-sided deafness cannot get cochlear implantation and do not benefit from hearing aids or middle-ear surgery. 
• In these cases providing hearing augmentation is crucial to mitigate hearing disability and improve academic outcomes in children and social lives in adults.
• Bone conduction implantation emerges as a definitive hearing solution for these patients to facilitate their rehabilitation.

What is bone conduction hearing?

• Most people hear in two ways: 
  • By air conduction [Information enters our ear canal, travels through the middle ear, and registers in the mechanisms of the inner ear (cochlea).]
  • By bone conduction (Information from vibration through bones goes directly to the cochlea).
  • They both work together to help us listen to and perceive sound.

• Problems in the outer or middle ear can restrict sound waves from getting through to the inner ear which results in hearing loss. 
• Bone conduction hearing is a mechanism by which sound vibrations are transmitted directly to the inner ear through bone tissues in the skull, bypassing the outer and middle ear. 
• This process allows individuals to perceive sound even if their outer or middle ear is impaired.