A.W., a recent cochlear implant recipient, has done extremely well with his implant. He began to understand words on the first day. Like most patients, he shows continued improvement over time. He has been very happy with his results. The vast majority of patients have improvement in their communication after cochlear implantation.
Some patients are able to understand speech much better than previously.
A small number are even able to understand speech on the telephone, and some do not need to lip read anymore. However, there is some variability in the results of individual patients. In many cases, this relates to deterioration of the hearing nerve during the period of deafness. Fortunately, the proportion of patients who do very poorly with a cochlear implant is small. Most patients note significant improvement.