Patent ID: 8706246

Claim:
A cochlear implant system comprising: an external module positioned external to and worn by a patient; and an implantable module implanted within the patient; wherein the external module comprises: an external microphone configured to detect an input audio signal presented to the patient, an external processing facility configured to process the input audio signal detected by the external microphone in accordance with one or more signal processing heuristics and transmit an electric signal representative of the processed input audio signal, and an external speaker configured to receive the processed input audio signal from the external processing facility, convert the electrical signal into an audio signal representative of the processed input audio signal, and acoustically transmit the audio signal representative of the processed input audio signal to the implantable module of the cochlear implant system; and wherein the implantable module comprises: an internal microphone configured to detect the audio signal representative of the processed input audio signal as transmitted by the external speaker, an internal sound processor configured to generate one or more stimulation parameters based on the acoustically transmitted audio signal, and an internal cochlear stimulator configured to apply electrical stimulation representative of the input audio signal to one or more stimulation sites within the patient in accordance with the one or more stimulation parameters.