12-channel cochlear implant in a deaf-blind patient.

A case study of a deaf-blind patient implanted with the COMB140+ cochlear i mplant is presented. The patient is a 70-year-old woman who has been blind since the age of 40. Since 1977 the hearing loss continuously increased. Be fore surgery she had a very small residual hearing (with hearing aid: 40 % speech intelligibility by four syllable numbers) and she used Braille and f inger-spelling on her hand to communicate with other people. The patient ha s a high intelligence and so she did not have any problems when the speechp rocessor was fitted and during the hearing therapy. After one month she had an open-set-speech recognition. The quality of her life is much better tha n before surgery. The communication by finger-spelling on her hand is not n ecessary any longer.