[Alyssa Reese] Hi everyone! My name is Alyssa Reese and I am a second year medical student at
the Jacob School of Medicine, and today I'm going to be talking about cochlear implants,
and more specifically my research on their implications in ADA discrimination complaints.
First off, I just want to give a background on what it means to hear. So, what happens is
sound waves travel from your outer ear, which you might recognize, through this canal and
eventually reach a structure called the tympanic membrane. Now, that membrane has the ability to
vibrate, and when it vibrates, it can vibrate all this extra fluid within your inner ear.
Eventually, the movement of that fluid causes a signal to be transmitted from your cochlea
to your vestibular cochlear nerve. And, this nerve here is what goes up to your brain, so
your brain can interpret this out wave as, let's say, a word or whatever you're hearing. Now, in
some individuals their cochlea isn't functioning, and that results in sensory neural hearing loss.
And, sensory neural hearing loss can be caused by a multitude of different things, including
tumors that might compress the cochlea, infection, or trauma. So, if you get hit too hard in the head,
it might damage the cochlea and then that cochlea can't transmit the signals to your brain.
And so, in order to address this issue, cochlear implant technology was invented. So, it's made
a lot of improvements since it was invented, but it was approved for individuals with profound
hearing loss by the FDA in 1996, and includes both an internal and external component which I'll show.
And, it's placed by surgically drilling through the skull, so it's a pretty invasive procedure to
place this. So, this is the internal portion, and you can see here there's an electrode that can go into
your cochlea, which i'll show in a moment, and then there's this external portion, which looks kind
of like a hearing aid. And, this portion and this portion are so the external internal can communicate
with each other. So, this video is great because it shows how there's a hole drilled, and then the
internal component was placed right on the skull, and eventually this electrode is funneled through
the cochlea, which looks a lot like a snail shell. And, you can see here it's being funneled through.
And so, signals can be transmitted through the cochlea and then reach those nerves, like I talked
about before, and eventually the signal can be transmitted to the brain. Now you can see here,
you would have to surgically sew it back up, so you might not even recognize that somebody has
a cochlear implant under their skin. Pull the ear back, and then place the external portion,
which I said before looks kind of like a hearing, hearing aid. And so, essentially what happens is
this external portion will collect information about what's going on outside, so like the sound,
and then the sound waves here and the signals are transmitted from the external portion
to the internal portion, which eventually goes to that cochlea, and then to the brain.
(various cochlear implant sounds)
So, that's what a cochlear implant sounds like. Now, if you've never heard something like that before,
the simulation like this, you might realize, you know, it maybe you thought it sounded like
a hearing aid, or maybe you thought it sounded just like a little bit quieter than usual, but
actually, it's completely different sound than what somebody with a normal cochlea would hear.
And, it's very muffled. It takes people a long time to get accustomed to what these cochlear implants
actually sound like and so that they can talk with others and understand what what they're hearing.
So, my research focuses on the implications of cochlear implants and ADA litigation. So, the
Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law that prevents discrimination against individuals
with certain disabilities, including that of a hearing impairment. So, I use a Westlaw
Legal Research Database to collect cases where the plaintiff, or the person bringing the complaint,
had a cochlear implant, and they were claiming discrimination related to their hearing impairment.
When I looked at those cases, what I found was that there were 24 of them
initiated in 19 US states, with the greatest number of cases taking place in California.
And, the discrimination most frequently took place in a K-12 school, so a lot of these
individuals were children with cochlear implants not being provided the proper resources in school,
in the workplace, or during an encounter with the police or correctional officers, because
the officers didn't know that the individual with cochlear implant couldn't hear them properly.
And, it was interesting to see that most of the cases were either dismissed or were ruled in
favor of the defendant, so they weren't ruled in favor of the individual with the cochlear implant.
And overall, what I concluded from this is that there are many individuals with cochlear implants
who are still at risk for discrimination as a result of their disability. And so, these
cochlear implants aren't fully protecting them from having a hearing impairment and
not being involved in these discrimination cases. And so, I believe that, based on this research,
patients with cochlear implants, schools, workplaces, and law enforcement could really benefit from some
ADA education, some cochlear implant education, so that everyone is better aware of what a cochlear
implant sounds like, and why there might be challenges, and how to support individuals
with cochlear implants in order to avoid the challenges and the discrimination complaints.
And, that concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.