Cochlear Implants CEU Courses

Considerable variation exists across the medical and audiologic communities regarding determination of cochlear implant (CI) candidacy. While criteria exist from the FDA for children and adults and from CMS for Medicare beneficiaries, different clinics and even audiologists within the same clinic use varying protocols to determine CI candidacy in different age groups and also considering factors other than hearing status. To provide guidance on this topic, the ACI Alliance Board of Directors commissioned four papers to provide guidelines for candidacy for children and adults with bilateral hearing loss and those with single-sided deafness. Task forces were appointed to develop the guidelines with membership drawn from across the care continuum to include audiologists, surgeons, speech-language pathologists, and others involved in CI patient care. This course will review each of those four candidacy guidelines.

This course will introduce participants to the ACI Alliance Guidelines for cochlear implantation in children with single sided deafness (SSD). Instructors will use case studies to guide attendees through highlights of the document including candidacy, evaluation, and programming recommendations.

The indications for cochlear implantation have expanded to include patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) and asymmetric hearing loss (AHL). The present course reviews the current evidence and results from a systematic review that were combined to provide guidance for the clinical assessment and management of adults with SSD and AHL. This course is presented by AudiologyOnline in partnership with ACIA.

Patients with cochlear implants must receive ongoing and consistent care in order to maximize outcomes. However, for some patients access to care may be limited by geography, mobility, or family and work responsibilities. In this course, we will explore how Cochlear’s Remote Care technology is making it possible to provide quality care to patients without a trip into the clinic and we will provide detail on Remote Check, a tool that allows clinicians to monitor patient progress anytime and anywhere.

This course will review guidelines for cochlear implant candidacy for pediatric patients. In addition, we will discuss specific considerations for working with pediatric patients who are deaf or hard of hearing and may benefit from cochlear implant technology. This course is presented by AudiologyOnline in partnership with ACIA.

This course will review components included in an adult cochlear implant evaluation and provide guidelines for testing a cochlear implant candidate. This course is presented by AudiologyOnline in partnership with ACIA.

The participant in this course will understand the extended candidacy criteria with cochlear implantation and expectations. The course will cover implanting under age one, hybrid hearing with cochlear implantation, CI under local anesthesia, single-sided deafness, cochlear implantation, and auditory brainstem implantation.

This course will describe the current cochlear implant candidacy through the VA system. It will specifically explore the expansion of our telehealth program during the pandemic. This course is presented in partnership with the Association of VA Audiologists (AVAA).

This course will provide clinicians with an overview of Unilateral Hearing Loss (UHL)/ Single Sided Deafness (SSD) in adults and provide an introduction to counseling and treatment.

Assessing outcomes in CI recipients with Single Sided Deafness is time consuming and challenging for busy clinics without a specialized test environment and equipment. This webinar will introduce a new testing resource from MED-EL that will help audiologists measure speech recognition through the implant and assess binaural listening skills, that can be completed quickly in a typical sound suite.