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Journalism of Courage
Dr. J.M Hans and his team of doctors at Dr. BLK Memorial Hospital successfully switched on the first Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI) for two and half yr old Tsesal from Ladakh in a rare surgery.
Tsesla,the second child of her parents was born deaf. It was after one and half years of birth that her parents discovered that she could not hear. After undergoing an MRI test,the doctors found out she was born without the tool of hearing the auditory nerve.
However,Tsesla had a surgery that not only helped her hear but also experience the world just like everybody else something she was always deprived of.
Dr. J M Hans,HOD ENT,Dr. B L Kapur Memorial Hospital who successfully conducted the surgery two months ago says,Tsesla is the first recipient of an Auditory Brainstem Implantation (ABI) in North India and second in Asia. ABI is a technique in which a small chip is placed in the brainstem to restore hearing sensation. It takes at least two months before the brain can get ready to the chip and can be switched on. It is only a matter of time,with the appropriate auditory and speech training that Tsesla would begin to hear and speak normally.
The auditory brainstem implant consists of a small electrode applied to the brainstem (central area of the brain),a small microphone on the outer ear and a speech processor. The electrode stimulates vital acoustic nuclei in the brainstem by means of electrical signals and the speech processor digitally transmits the sound signals to a decoding chip placed under the skin. A small wire connects the chip to the implanted electrode attached to the brainstem. Depending on the sounds,the electrode delivers different stimuli to the brainstem making deaf people hear a variety of sounds.
Generally children would have a cochlea and a nerve in place. When the cochlea is found to be defective it is generally replaced with a cochlear implant to facilitate hearing. However,none of that would have worked for in Tsesals case, Dr. J M Hans explains. In this case,instead of a cochlear implant,we had to put in an electronic device into her brain stem so as to directly stimulate the area of the brain that is responsible for hearing. The device has been switched on and is working well.
