ABSTRACT

Stimulation rate is an important parameter that experienced audiologists usually pay attention to in order to improve how electrical pulses stimulate the auditory nerve fibers. Theoretically, faster stimulation rates may enhance temporal information sent to the nerve fibers, therefore better speech perception specially in noise is expected. However, this has not been confirmed in the literature. The aim of this review is to highlight the effect of different stimulation rates on post-lingual cochlear implant adult recipients’ performance in quiet and noisy situations.

Methods: sixteen papers highlighted the effect of altering the stimulation rate on speech perception of post lingual adult Cochlear Implant users. However, only ten of them published between 2005 and 2019 matched our inclusion criteria, and therefore, were studied and analyzed.

Results: it appears that mid rates showed better speech perception outcomes with Cochlear recipients when compared to low or high rates. However, MedEl & AB recipients showed better speech perception outcomes with high rates strategies with a preference to use sequential stimulation over the paired type particularly with AB users.

Conclusion: it’s believed that what we know about the benefits of faster stimulation rates did not show in real clinical practice. The majority of CI users prefer mid stimulation rates. A slight and insignificant evidence have been reported on benefits of fast stimulation rates when listening to speech in the presence of background noise.

Key words: Cochlear Implant CI, Speech perception, Stimulation rate, Pulses per second per electrode pps/e, Current levels, Coding strategies.

Download the full Research Work: PDF. The effect of stimulation rate on speech performance in quiet and noisy situations in post-lingual cochlear implant adult recipients: A literature Review.