Advanced Treatments in ENT Disorders

ISSN: 2640-2777

Opinion

For professionals working on the topic of cochlear implantation: Opinions of readers of “Instruction” and participants of MIMIC

Petrov SM*

*Address for Correspondence: Petrov SM, Str. Turku h.5/13, dep. 240, St.-Petersburg, Russia; Email: senn2001@mail.ru

Dates: Submitted: 22 December 2017; Approved: 17 January 2018; Published: 18 January 2018

How to cite this article: Petrov SM. For professionals working on the topic of cochlear implantation: Opinions of readers of “Instruction” and participants of MIMIC. Adv Treat ENT Disord 2018; 2: 001-005. DOI: 10.29328/journal.ated.1001004

Copyright License: © 2017 Petrov SM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords: Vootiue MIMIC; Instruction for CI

The rationale for writing “Instruction”

During the fitting procedure an audiologists hear many questions from the parents of cochlear implanted (CI) patients. The further, the more. Almost all of questions are similar ones. About batteries, switch of programs, selection of program, dryer, additional devices, and technical faults and so on. Only part of answers can be found in “Fine Tuner Instruction” and “Guide for the user”. Parents need to look for other answers here, there, there, there… In order to facilitate the life of parents and don’t to repeat the same explanations to every parent we wrote “Instruction” [1] where we tried to answer the most common questions about work with system of cochlear implantation. “Instruction” is to a certain extent, answers to parents’ FAQ. Most of the recommendations and indications are applicable ones for patients with any type of an implant. Primarily “Instruction” was written for CI-parents, but later it was expanded for audiologists too.

The evaluations of readers of our “Instruction” are given below.

The rationale for creation MIMIC

Many parents want to understand how their implanted children hear and how they learn to understand speech. In order to make a clear physiological explanation of the characteristics of auditory perception of implanted patients and their problems we have to start from the basics of acoustics and the physiology of hearing that is hardly possible. The real solution of this task is to create the similar conditions in which CI patient are appeared after cochlear implantation and to demonstrate that situation to the parents. For this purpose we have developed a demo-program MIMIC based on our previous research [2]. MIMIC doesn’t depend on type of the implant. Demonstration is performed vootiue-on parent’s own ear. After participation in MIMIC all (!) participants said that they began to understand the issues of CI and the problems of their implanted children better.

Primarily MIMIC was created for CI-parents, but it turned out that it is also useful for speech therapists. It can be seen from participants’ evaluations of our demo-program MIMIC which are given below.

The evaluations of readers of “Instruction”

1. “Thank You very much for the «Instruction»! Honestly, so far I have not seen any practical advices for parents on how to setup the CI, but here everything is written clearly, clear and available.” - Professor

2. “And who can write better? No one does. Theoretically everything is correct and the «Instruction» is excellent one.” - Adult CI patient

3. “Thank you for the «Instruction for parents”. A very important thing for information and assistance not only to parents but also to speech therapists who work with them. I appreciate your study.” - Speech therapist

4.”Great «Instruction»! If we would have the opportunity at the time to have this information - we were able to avoid many mistakes in the use of the implant and the preparation of the child to fitting. Thank you, even now relevant guideline.” - Speech therapist

5.”Dear Sergey Mikhailovich! Thank you very much for this guideline. Today we are able to start a fitting. Your «Instruction» -is “table book” of our audiologists. With gratitude we will be acquainted with the new version.” - Doctor.

6.”The «Instruction» contains a lot of necessary and useful information, of course. But in my parent view it contains a lot of information on a special scientific language. I would rewrite some places to be simpler. The majority of parents did not study the basics of the surdopedagogy and audiology. With respect,”

“About the «Instruction»: It is really a very necessary thing for parents, once given the answer to many questions. When my child was operated such an «Instruction» was not given. I had a lot of questions.” – Mom

7. There is another judgment of the «Instruction» with minor and not fundamental comments. (We - authors - have taken into account the 6-th opinion, made some corrections and changed the title of the «Instruction». All falled into place). – Professor

8. There is also antireview of institute’s “experts”. At first turn “«Instruction»” was perverted, and then this perversion was condemned. (I: If for the condemnation of our text it should be perverted, it means that real «Instruction»” is perfect one. That’s why it is strongly required to print it and to distribute).

9. “Review” of Krasnodar’s “expert”: “Asil. Lot of lettars.” (Distorted: “Not mastered. A lot of letters.”) (I: Silly “joke”. Similar with antireview N8. It is obvious that there is nothing to condemn, to distort - dumb, and to praise - the toad smothers, like the authors of the eighth “antireview”).

10. “The «Instruction» is excellent, detailed one. Really it is needed to prepare parents for operation of child (like “ABC”) and in the future”. - Mom.

11. “Your «Instruction» is very useful for my speech therapist. She says: “You are super!” She had copied it”. - Mom.

12. “I can say only one thing. It is very pity that it was not in my use before”. - Mom.

13. “Everything is very accessible written. Liked. Thank you.” Mom

14. “Super. It’s time to write doctoral dissertation”. Dad

15. “I had read the «Instruction». Everything is accessible and understandable. Thank you. Good information for parents of CI children. For example such advice as activation of the batteries (for 2 min to hold in air after removing the sticker). As I know from parents they do not know all this. Or what to do if a child stopped to hear? What to do? Where to go?” - Mother.

16. «Instruction» is wonderful one: simple, clear, and most importantly, affordable for the layman. I think the main advantages of the «Instruction» are the lack of clutter of medical terms (understandable to a narrow circle of specialists) and ease of understanding of the material. Good Luck to You! And thanks for the fitting. – Mom

17. “The «Instruction» is written in accessible language for parents, at least to me became clear. Word “Vootiue” is rightly chosen.I had read from cover to cover in one go. Thank you very much for such a wonderful «Instruction», it helps parents really. I will recommend it to the CI parents. Thank you.” – Mom

19. “Thank you. We had read the «Instruction». Really everything that is needed at once and in one place, everything is described in details!!! If the «Instruction» would be given out immediately with a suitcase during first fiting, it really helped parents “newbies”!” – Mom

20. My SMS question was: What do you think about “the «Instruction»”? Your opinion, pls. Answer: “Good. If it were given us in time in ENT institute we would done less mistakes.”

21. “I want to say: “Thank You for the «Instruction». All very accessible and understandable. And it is very pity that we had not such a «Instruction» in the beginning of our CI-journey. Many mistakes could be avoided!” – Mother

22. “About this «Instruction». It is very pity that we had not the «Instruction» in the hands in the beginning. A lot of thing what you describe there, I had to look for myself on the Internet. And here all is in one brochure. Very convenient. I don’t understand how this guideline could be rejected by “experts”?!”

“I’m a little lost the essence of the program MIMIC. Explain, please! Is this program can help to understand the problems of implanted child? Or something else?” -Mom

23. “ I had read the «Instruction”. It seems to me that it is very useful. When you fitted my child (5 years ago), I was looking for just such information that is in your brochure: about settings, modes of the processor, batteries, technical faults. I liked «Instruction» very much. Thank you for your work!”- Mom

24. Thanks for the «Instruction». A big help to parents. A lot of useful information about settings, and especially about the operation of additional devices to the CI. –Dad

We emphasize that ALL reviews are collected here. And, as you can see, ALL the reviews are positive ones, with the exception of false opinion No. 8, which says: “this manual cannot be recommended for publication”. (One more perversion). We can unequivocally claim that the purpose of such statement is irrelevant to the considerations about the benefit of “«Instruction»” for CI patients. Real benefit of “Instruction” can be seen from the rest other reviews.

Our first impression from reading the reviews - many parents regret that they had not this “«Instruction»” from the moment of the first fitting. Speech therapists regret that they had not it from the very beginning of their work with implanted patients. But even with their CI experience, parents and teachers find new and useful information. We believe it is necessary to emphasize that our “«Instruction»” for several years was unavailable for parents and speech therapists through no fault of the authors, but by personal, selfish motives of some institute’s “experts” who care only about themselves but not about CI-patients (№ 8, 9?).

Quotes from participants’ reviews of demo-program MIMIC

8 opinions of speech therapists

1. It’s just brilliant! With respect.

2. Grand, clear, accessible, visually impressive.

3. Great program. It should be embedded in each centre of audiology.

4. MIMIK gives you the opportunity to give hope to parents. And to inspire.

5. Be sure to demonstrate it to CI-mothers. It should give them confidence.

6. Very useful and valuable technique. CI relatives, teachers, doctors working with CI must participate in this program. Spa-si-Bo! (Th-a-nKs).

7. Owing to this DEMO-program I was able “vootiue” to get in touch with the hearing problems of children and adults with CI.

8. The program must be demonstrated to all CI mothers. This will instill confidence in them.

6 opinions of CI-mothers

1. All parents of CI-children do need to participate in this DEMO-program MIMIC

2. I’m glad I agreed to participate in MIMIC. Got a lot of useful information.

3. I have to say that the program is brilliant.

4. Thanks for the program! Will remember for a lifetime! It (MIMIC) brought me closer to the problems of the child, gave a lot to understand!

5. MIMIC is unique Program!

6. There is opinion of mother and speech therapist simultaneously:

The importance of MIMIC lies in

a. Accessibility of demonstration.

b. The ability to understand the problem of development of CI-speech.

c. To understand the importance of education.

Importantly, MIMIC is performed vootiue, i.e. on a “live ear”.

After this unanimous approval of MIMIC I stopped collecting of written comments. All the other participants of MIMIC (more than one hundred of parents and speech therapists) were grateful to me vootiue. By the way author of 8-th antireview of “Instruction” proposed to vote and to forbid the use of MIMIC.

All comments confirm the value and effectiveness of our “Instruction” and demo-program MIMIC. Except two false comments of some “specialists”.

Author has15 years Clinical Practice with more than one thousand patients and their parents. On the base of our researches and patents we are now preparing “Guideline for cochlear implant fitting”.