Hope for hearing

DUBAI - Chiming bells, the whistle of the pressure cooker and a door slamming are all sounds that we hardly pay attention to in our daily routine. But these very sounds hold a special meaning in young Renita Lovlyn D’Souza’s life, who has experienced dead silence for years and now appreciates the beauty of each and every sound.

Renita’s journey from silence to sound was broken by the hum of an air conditioner in the office of the doctor who gave her a cochlear implant three years ago. In August of 2010, Sheetal from Med-El, the company that makes hearing implant aids, fitted her with the audio processor, Opus 2.

“The first sound I heard was the air conditioner of the doctor’s (Sandra D’Souza at Jaslok Hospital, India) office. I was like…what is that?” Renita said, describing the sound that broke four years of complete silence that the then 18 year-old had been living with.

“It was then it struck me that I could hear again,” explains the youngster. “This made me prepare myself to learn new everyday sounds like the whistle of a pressure cooker, bells ringing, a door slamming,” says the 22-year-old Indian national. “Now I love to listen to my favourite tunes on the weekends.” A Dubai resident, Renita partially lost her hearing when she was only seven. Doctors could not say what caused it. “I had to wear hearing aids,” she says. By the age of 14, she had lost her hearing completely. “The hearing aid was not useful to me anymore,” she explains.

“I was a student and I had to rely on my classmates and teachers as well as my parents who have supported me throughout my high school years,” she says. The implant changed Renita’s life forever. “After the implant was (fitted), I no longer had to rely on others,” she explains. “I now drive my car all alone and also talk on the phone… all things that I couldn’t do before,” she says enthusiastically.

“The implant was the best decision because it gave me a responsibility to learn things on my own. Now, I love to listen to music at home and I can say to all “I can hear”.” “My parents have been by my side and have constantly supported me,” she adds. Renita is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Business Administration at a reputed university. According to the latest World Health Organisation statistics, 32 million children worldwide under the age of 15 are affected by varying degrees of hearing loss. Some of the cases are congenital, a result of infections, injury or even from listening to loud music.

There is no clear recorded data about hearing loss and deafness in the UAE; however, there has been some evidence linking intermarriage as another cause of deafness in infants, especially in families where more than one child is affected. Last week, the UAE marked the National Deaf Awareness Week to highlight the issue of hearing loss and deafness in the UAE, especially in children, and the benefits of early diagnosis and treatment.

Experts discussed that hearing loss in children can be treated by early diagnosis and finding the most suitable treatment either through hearing aids or cochlear implantation, followed by rehabilitation.

In Dubai, at least one to two implants are fitted at Dubai Hospital each month, says medical director of the hospital Dr Rehman Hussain. He hopes this number will increase after a soon to be done tie-up with a Sharjah charity foundation that is helping needy patients. “The implant is done by a whole team including a surgeon, audiologist and a psychologist for rehabilitation of the patient,” he explains. “So it is team work.” However, costs of the implant remain high. Dubai Hospital charges Dh102,500 for an implant which includes rehabilitation for three months.

“This is the best price at the moment,” says Dr Hussain. When diagnosis is not done early enough, the child’s speech is either delayed or non-existent and they will find it hard to excel in school, express themselves and lead a normal social and professional life, say experts.

More studies are being conducted to confirm these findings, but for now it is highly recommended that parents test their children’s hearing immediately after birth as a routine procedure, explains Dr Navid Taghvaei, Audiologist at the hearLIFE Clinic in Dubai Healthcare City.

“An audiology exam is currently not mandatory in UAE hospitals, so to put their minds at ease, parents need to take the initiative and follow-up until the audiologist confirms normal hearing for the child,” he adds. Cochlear Implant surgeon at Dubai Hospital Dr Jamal Kassouma adds: “Through research and long-term medical observations we have clear evidence that the earlier we diagnose and treat hearing loss in children, the more successful the treatment is.”

“Infants as young as six months can receive cochlear implants to restore their hearing and as a result enable their speech to develop similarly to that of children with no hearing loss,” he explains during a recently held roundtable discussion titled ‘Opening Young Ears to the World: Early Intervention in Children with Hearing Loss.’

“The importance of early intervention is key to minimise the gap of neural stimulation; this is also true if hearing loss occurs later in childhood,” adds Dr Kassouma.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com