Total implantation of the Implex TICA hearing amplifier implant for high-frequency sensorineural hearing loss - The Tubingen University experience

Hearing devices may be classified as sound-producing hearing aids, electric ally stimulating devices, and vibratory hearing aids. Because patients may lose physiologic cochlear amplification, hearing devices for the treatment of sensorineural hearing loss are used as signal amplifiers. The totally im plantable communication assistance (TICA) device is a European-approved tot ally implantable vibratory amplifier implant. It picks up the sound signal transcutaneously from the external auditory canal near the eardrum, amplifi es the signal, and transduces the signal into microvibrations that are deli vered to the ossicular chain.