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Do Cochlear Implant Brands matter?

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Matter? Only thing that’s important is, what matters to you!

Look at the features and see which one works better for you!

At my UK Deaf Centre, there are people with all 3 x brands.

I have read that some people in USA don’t have a choice of all 3 x brands. Here in the UK, where I live, we have a choice of all 3 x brands.

I follow this British Paralympic swimmer who happens to be profoundly deaf. (She also has a spinal cord injury.)

She chose Cochlear N7 as what was important to her was,

  • connecting to phone.
  • waterproof system and being able to use a remote mic whiles in the pool to hear instructions from her coach.

This is important to her but won’t be important to you, for example.

I would recommend looking at the actual implant specs etc.

Someone from my Deaf Centre, got Med El as apparently the actual implant bit that goes into the cochlear is a bit longer so hearing lows would be slightly easier. She wanted that because she plays an instrument which is quite low frequency in sound.

My process for brand of implant started by finding an audiologist that I liked. He recommended a group of surgeons. I checked them out and made an appointment with the one I liked from internet reviews.
This surgeon said Cochlear is his choice for a number of reasons.

I actually wanted because of the Phonak Bluetooth. I asked the surgeon about AB and he said he likes Cochlear’s track record and that’s what he likes to implant.

I believe all three manufacturers are fine.

Finding the brand that is supported best where you live is probably the best choice. Where I live Cochlear is well supported. That’s the direction I went.

In reply to @Zebras

@Zebras said:

got Med El CI as apparently the actual implant bit that goes into the cochlear is a bit longer so hearing lows would be slightly easier. She wanted that because she plays an instrument which is quite low frequency in sound.

I’d been told the same too but also that it was so subjective that there was no way to know whether this made any real practical difference at all. I went with Cochlear because (1) they have something like 80-90% of the local market, being a local Australian company; therefore (2) support, parts & audiologists familiar with the brand are more readily accessible for Cochlear; and (3) I live 10 minutes away from Cochlear head office & my audiologist is across the road from their building. When I had a problem with the implant a few months after activation, Cochlear sent (on request) an in-house technician to my audiology appointments to troubleshoot the issue. It was just so easy to organise.

Edited

I chose cochlear because they have ridiculously low power consumption… Cochlear have a sound processing which extract speech well enough for low power consumption and compute resources are allocated to improving the front end processing ( the 2 microphones and noise suppressing system/ SCAN program) which makes it more like a hearing aid…

mine last 18-24 hours on a standard battery… the cochlear ACE strategy is no different than other manufacture, they do stuff in the back end of a cochlear implant which is the electrode at a cost of power consumption… which result in faster processing and more data to nerves but research says same performance as the cochlear highly efficient ACE strategy…

Firstly find out what your surgeons preference is, what he/she is more comfortable working with. Do your research thoroughly, write all your questions down. Make appointments with the companies representative to have a hands on appointment and ask all your questions. And what work well with each company.

Do brands matter? Not particularly they all work extremely well.
Look at direct streaming versus ALD requirements.
Look at ongoing costs and what out of pocket expenses you are going to have for you lifetime.
Look into your health insurance and what it covers.
Think about your work/family situation and are you on the phone very much throughout the day.

I didn’t have a choice, where I live are staunch supporters of Prof Graeme Clark the inventor of Cochlear brand.
Good luck with you new hearing journey.

I’m very happy with my N7, I worked hard at rehab and got fabulous results.

IMO if you do the evaluation first get those results then get the and . Simply because if you don’t get accepted as a future recipient your not paying to have unnecessary tests.

Good luck with your evaluation.

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