Stapedectomy: Your doctor may suggest stapedectomy if your hearing loss is because of damage to a bone called stapes in the middle ear.Your doctor will suggest that you get cochlear implants if you are no longer able to listen with the help of hearing aids. Cochlear implant: According to Mayo Clinic, electronic devices inserted into the cochlea can help to partially restore hearing.Most hearing aids are digital and adjust sound signals based on your degree of deafness, offering better hearing loss management. Hearing aids: Hearing aids greatly improve your quality of life by helping you hear better, according to NYU Langone Health.Current Treatments That Workĭepending on why you have lost your hearing, your doctor will suggest several treatment options that might work for you. According to Cherukuri, that means we are likely 5-10 years or more away from having a meaningful stem cell treatment option for humans for hearing loss. No human studies have been performed,” Sreek Cherukuri, MD, clinical assistant professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, tells WebMD Connect to Care. “Unfortunately, to date, the only studies that have been done are preclinical animal studies. But they are still working on transplanting these hair cells into human ears and getting them to restore hearing. The National Center for Biotechnology Information says that scientists have been successful in growing human inner ear hairs in a culture dish. Stem cells have the ability to function like other cells and also make new cells.These transplanted stem cells can behave exactly like the inner ear hairs and help restore hearing. Damage to these hairs can lead to permanent hearing loss. The delicate hairs inside our cochlea, or inner ear, help us hear.
When Will There Be Stem Cell Treatment for Hearing Loss?Īccording to Stanford Medicine, stem cell therapy involves transplanting new stem cells into the inner ears. But there is still some way to go before stem cell treatment for hearing loss is made available to the general public. Stem cell therapy helps regenerate damaged parts of the ears, without the need for hearing aid devices. According to the National Library of Medicine, stem cell therapy could soon be another treatment for hearing loss. Based on these results, many countries including Korea have done clinical trials in deaf patients.Hearing aids and cochlear implants help many folks manage and cope with hearing loss. Gene therapy with Atoh 1 gene and transplantation of stem cells into the cochlea regenerate damaged hair cells and morphologically restore spiral ganglion neurons allowing functional hearing in the deaf animal model. Recently there were fruitful re-sults from gene and stem cell therapy research for hearing loss. That is why researchers have interest in regenerative measures to restore or prevent hearing loss. But these devices do not give perfect benefit to the pa-tients functionally and there are aesthetic problems. For hearing handicapped people, many devices (hearing aid, cochlear implant, middle ear implant etc.) have been developed to reduce or overcome the disability. PISSN 1738-429X eISSN 2234-4446 Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common disability in the world and nearly one third of all individuals over the age of 65 are affected.