AUDITORY BRAIN-STEM IMPLANT .2. POSTSURGICAL ISSUES AND PERFORMANCE

The auditory brainstem implant (ABI) restores some hearing sensations to patients deafened by bilateral acoustic tumors. Electrodes are stab le for more than 10 years. In most cases nonauditory side effects can be avoided by judicious selection of the stimulating waveform and elec trode configuration. Most perceptual measurements demonstrate that the ABI produces psychophysical and speech performance similar to that of single-channel cochlear implants. ABI patients receive suprasegmental information in speech and significant enhancement of speech understan ding when the sound from the ABI is combined with lipreading.