Sound Decision

We met with Logan's audiologist today to go over the pros and cons of the different implant brands. We had already ruled out one brand, so we had the Med-El and Cochlear Americas to look at. There is really so much to think about since this is something that will be inside his head and it's not like you can just switch it out on a whim.

Originally, we were pretty sure we were going with Med-El since Logan's ENT had suggested it because the internal device has the thinnest profile and the outer device is backwards compatible. We got to look at a sample device and it was very basic. It didn't really have much polish to it. Both brands come with a remote to control various options on the device but theirs was also quite basic and looked more difficult to use.

Once we reviewed the Cochlear Americas device we were sold! This device does everything the Med-El does but it seems like it does it better. Their devices are also backwards compatible, their remote has a screen and some great troubleshooting features, has a sleeker design and has splash protection. Our audiologist shared a story with us about the Cochlear Americas representative who visited the school and talked about how parents tend to be apprehensive about the splash protection, and understandably so! I mean these devices aren't cheap! So to demonstrate, she actually had the device submerged in a fishbowl full of water for over 3 hours and it still worked! This is a big deal to us because both our kids love the water and it is always a shame that we have to take his hearing aids off for him to be in water. The other thing we loved about Cochlear Americas is that they seem to have a lot of integrity as a company. Our audiologist told us that they voluntarily took their latest internal processor off the market and reverted back to their older processor because they saw a trend of processor failure after a few months of use. So instead of waiting for the FDA to force them to take it off the market, they took it off themselves. Advanced Bionics, a company we were not considering, actually has been forced to take their stuff off the market a few times.

We also got to talk to a child that had a Med-El implant and one that had Cochlear Americas. They both spoke very well and it was nice to see how much these implants can help these kids. I can't wait to see how it helps little Logan!