Carmen is a 13 month old girl who suffers congenital deafness. He was born with an absence of auditory nerve branches, so it was impossible for his brain to decipher the sounds his ear received. Because of this rare disease that affects one in every 100,000 live newborns, Carmen could not help her hear the implants or hearing aids that currently exist.
For this reason Carmen was offered to receive a new device that can ensure that people with this type of disability can perceive sounds. Last October, this operation was performed at La Clínica Universitaria de Navarra, turning Carmen into the youngest patient in the world who has undergone this intervention. This is the second time this technique is performed in Spain, the previous one was in the same clinic in an eight-year-old girl, and it was a success.
The operation consists of implanting electrodes on the nerve centers that are responsible for receiving the auditory stimuli. These are found in the brain stem. This allows the brain to interpret the electrical signals it receives as sounds. Part of the difficulty of the operation is that during the intervention tests had to be performed to stimulate the electrodes and verify that they were placed correctly.
To know if the operation has been a success there is a problem, Carmen is still small and cannot express whether or not she hears any sound. Even so, the doctors affirm that during the later revisions of the little one it has been verified that she perceives sounds and that she even begins to produce them. A great hope for Carmen and for a large number of people suffering from this disability.
Via | The world In Babies and more | Early detection of neonatal deafness
