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Highlights of our program
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Here we cater to the hearing needs of patients with ​
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Patients with single sided deafness, usually due to tumour removals on one side.
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Conductive or mixed hearing losses.
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To patients who cannot wear hearing aids due to medical problems in ear canal.
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What are Bone Anchored Hearing Implants and how do they work?
Bone Anchored Hearing Implants (BAHI) are devices that treat hearing loss through sound vibrations to the inner ear via the bone conduction pathway. This is in contrast to conventional hearing aids that simply amplify sounds and deliver them to the ear through the ear canal and the hearing process is the same as the process in normal hearing. Bone Anchored Implants consist of 2 parts: a titanium implant placed on the bone behind the ear and a sound processor attached to the implant. Once the sound processor is in place, it picks up sound like a conventional hearing aid. But instead of amplifying these sounds, it converts them into vibrations sent through the skull bone and can be detected directly by the cochlea. The hearing implant can be connected to a programming software and adjusted according to the audiogram.
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When should BAHA be suggested?
Candidacy is again best determined by combined evaluations by ENT specialists and audiologists. BAHI work best for individuals who have at least one normal or near normally functioning cochlea. (i) Malformations of the outer and middle ear such as microtia and atresia: these types of malformations are usually congenital in nature, but can also due to external causes such as trauma; (ii) Recurrent/secretory otitis media or other middle ear issues like otosclerosis or damage to the middle ear ossicles; (iii) Unilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss/Single Sided Deafness. In all these conditions, normal hearing aids either do not benefit or cannot be worn. For very young children, the surgery is delayed until four to five years of age, but they can use the instrument coupled to a soft band worn around the head.
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Our BAHA Program
1. BHII is the pioneer institute in India to start one shot BAHA surgery for patients who have 'Skull Base' tumours like Vestibular Schwannoma, Chondrosarcoma, Paraganglioma, Neurofibromatosis which causes deafness on the side of tumour.
2. Our very experienced surgeon, along with excising the life threatening tumours, provides the valuable hearing rehabilitation implant alongside the surgical procedure.
3. Experience session: Prior to the surgery we provide an experience session with BAHA by simulating the hearing loss the patient undergoes with tumour excision.
4. Documentation of the benefit from the device after experience session.
5. Life long monitoring of the device post implantation.
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