Are cortical auditory evoked potentials useful in the clinical assessment of adults with cochlear implants?

Abstract

Cochlear implant (CI) trends are changing as more recipients are receiving bilateral implantation. Also more pre-lingually deafened adults are choosing to be implanted. Clinical assessment after cochlear implantation is usually based on speech perception tests. Such tests, however, may not be a realistic outcome measure for some of these cases, creating a need for more objective measures of CI performance. Cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs) recorded in the sound field may be a fast and reliable procedure for the clinical audiologist to determine CI outcomes. This paper presents two case studies illustrating CAEP findings in an adult CI user who was pre-lingually deafened and a bilateral CI user.