Glossary

Adverse event

— Any undesirable clinical event occurring to a patient.

Air-bone gap

— A difference in decibels between hearing thresholds for air-versus bone-conduction stimulation. A sign of conductive hearing loss.

Amplifies

— To increase the strength or amount of. To make louder.

Anesthesia

— A process to control pain during medical procedures. It includes using medicines to keep you comfortable, and may also be used to help control breathing, blood pressure, blood flow, and heart rate and rhythm, when needed. The two most common types of anesthesia are general and local.

Anxiety

— An abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse).

Auditory nerve

— Either of the eighth cranial nerves connecting the inner ear with the brain, transmitting impulses concerned with hearing and balance, and composed of the cochlear nerve and the vestibular nerve.

Bilateral

— Affecting both the right and left sides of the body.

Cholesteatoma

— A skin growth located in the middle ear behind the eardrum.

Chorda tympani

— One of three nerves that are involved in taste, it is a branch of the facial nerve (the seventh cranial nerve) that serves the taste buds in the front of the tongue. The nerve passes through the middle ear.

Chronic

— A disease or ailment that is long-lasting or recurrent.

Cochlea

— The main portion of the inner part of the ear, it is a bony labyrinth coiled into the form of a snail shell. It picks up mechanical signals from the middle ear and converts them into nerve impulses, which can be interpreted by the brain as sound.

Conductive hearing loss

— A type of hearing loss due to the interruption of normal sound transmission through the outer and/or middle ear. Causes can be anything from earwax build up to the absence or malformation of a part of the ear’s anatomy.

Contraindication

— Something, such as a symptom or condition, that makes a particular treatment or procedure inadvisable.

CT Scan

— A sectional view of the body constructed by computed tomography.

Depression

— A psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration.

Diathermy

— The generation of heat in tissue by electric currents for medical or surgical purposes.

Disarticulate

— The separation of bone at a joint.

Driver

— An implanted component of the Esteem®. Attached to the stapes, it mechanically vibrates the stapes in order to stimulate the cochlea.

Eardrum

— A thin membrane separating the ear canal from the middle ear that vibrates in response to sound energy and transmits the resulting mechanical vibrations to the structures of the middle ear.

Eardrum perforation

— A rupture of the eardrum or tympanic membrane.

Eczema

— An inflammatory condition of the skin characterized by redness, itching, and oozing vesicular lesions which become scaly, crusted, or hardened.

Electrical current

— A flow of electric charge.

Enhance

— To increase or improve in value, quality, desirability, or attractiveness.

Eustachian tube

— Small passageway from nasopharynx to the middle ear space for equalizing air pressure on both sides of the tympanic membrane.

External defibrillation

— An electric shock to restore the rhythm of a fibrillating heart.

Facial paresis

— A light or partial paralysis of the face.

Feedback

— Sound created when a transducer such as a microphone picks up sound from a speaker connected to an amplifier and regenerates it back through the amplifier.

Fibrotic tissue

— Tissue characterized by a fibrous (versus bony) composition. Fibrotic tissue is often encountered in the middle ear as result of surgical intervention or infection.

Filters

— Electronic circuits which perform signal processing functions, specifically to remove unwanted frequency components from a signal and to enhance wanted ones.

Fracture

— The breaking of hard tissue, such as bone.

Frequency

— The number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time.

General anesthesia

— General anesthesia, commonly produced by intravenous drugs or inhaled gasses, is a treatment that puts you to sleep during a medical procedure, so that you don’t feel or remember anything that happens during the medical procedure.

Genetic

— A trait that is inherited through an individual’s genes.

Hematoma

— A mass of usually clotted blood that forms in a tissue, organ, or body space as a result of a broken blood vessel.

HFPTA

— High Frequency Pure Tone Average: an audiological test done to determine an individual’s level of hearing loss across several frequencies.

Hydrops

— The abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body.

Hypersensitivity

— Excessively or abnormally sensitive.

Illuminated

— The action or resulting state of supplying or brightening with light.

Implantation

— Medical treatment by the insertion of an implant.

Incus

— The second of the three ossicles connecting the tympanic membrane to the cochlea (inner ear). The body of the incus is attached to the head of the malleus, and the rounded projection at the lower end of the incus (lenticular process) is attached to the head of the stapes.

Indication

— A symptom or particular circumstance that indicates the advisability or necessity of a specific medical treatment or procedure.

Inner ear

— Also called the “cochlea.” A coiled, snail-like structure located within the temporal bone, containing the sensory organ for hearing. All acoustic stimulation must activate the inner ear to be perceived as sound.

Interference

— Anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message as it travels along a channel between a source and a receiver.

Keloid

— A thick scar resulting from excessive growth of fibrous tissue and occurring especially after burns or radiation injury.

Lithotripsy

— The breaking of a concentration of minerals in the body into pieces small enough to be voided or washed out.

Local anesthesia

— Local anesthesia, commonly produced by giving a shot directly into the surgical area, numbs a small part of the body. It is used only for minor procedures.

Malleus

— The first and largest of the three ossicles connecting the tympanic membrane to the inner ear. The malleus is the outermost of the three auditory ossicles that are located in the middle ear. Its shape resembles a club. The handle of the malleus (manubrium) is attached to the tympanic membrane, and the head of the malleus is attached to the body of the incus.

Mastoid

— A particular portion of the skull located behind the ear.

Mastoiditis

— Inflammation of the mastoid.

Mechanical feedback

— Sound created when a transducer picks up movement from another transducer and regenerates it back through the original transducer.

Meniere’s disease

— Pathology affecting the cochlea and resulting in sensory (sensorineural) hearing impairment. Characteristic signs and symptoms are tinnitus, vertigo, sensation of ear fullness, and a fluctuating, low-frequency sensorineural hearing impairment.

Microphone

— An electronic device for converting acoustic signal (a sound wave) into an electrical signal.

Middle ear

— A small membrane-lined cavity that contains the three ossicles ,which pick up sound vibrations from the eardrum, amplify them, and transfer their energy to the inner ear (cochlea).

Mild hearing loss

— Hearing loss between 25 and 40 dB

Mixed hearing loss

— Hearing loss with both conductive and sensory components. The audiogram shows a bone-conduction hearing deficit plus an air-bone gap.

Moderate hearing loss

— Hearing loss between 40 and 70 dB.

MRI

— Magnetic resonance imaging, is primarily a medical imaging technique most commonly used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structure and limited function of the body.

Neurological

— Of or relating to the scientific study of the nervous system especially in respect to its structure, functions, and abnormalities.

Ossicles

— The three small bones of the middle ear - the malleus, incus, and stapes - extending from the tympanic membrane through the tympanic cavity to the oval window.

Ossicular chain

— The three small bones of the middle ear - the malleus, incus, and stapes.

Otitis externa

— Inflammation of the external auditory canal.

Outer ear

— The outer visible portion of the ear that collects and directs sound waves toward the eardrum by way of the ear canal.

Oval window

— One of two openings into the inner ear (cochlea) from the middle ear space. Sound vibrations carried along the ossicles are transmitted to the cochlea through the stapes footplate, which is connected to the oval window.

Paranoia

— A mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur.

Personal Programmer

— A remote control device is used by the patient to adjust the volume and select pre-programmed settings in the sound processor.

PET Scan

— A sectional view of the body constructed by positron-emission tomography.

Pinna

— The outer, most obvious portion of the ear consisting of a cartilage framework. Parts of the pinna are the helix, the lobe, and the concha.

Polyurethane

— A type of polymer that is used in flexible and rigid foams, elastomers, and resins.

Profound hearing loss

— Hearing loss 90 dB or greater.

PORP

— Partial Ossicular Replacement Prosthesis

PTA

— Pure Tone Average is the key hearing test used to identify hearing threshold levels of an individual, enabling determination of the degree, type and configuration of a hearing loss.

Radio frequency (RF) ablation

— A medical procedure using high frequency alternating current to treat a medical disorder.

Reconstruction

— Repair of an organ or body part by reconstructive surgery.

Resonating tube

— A hollow tube with dimensions chosen to permit internal resonant oscillation of acoustical waves of specific frequencies.

Respiratory infection

— An infection of or relating to an individual’s respiratory system.

Retrocochlear disorder

— The portion of the auditory system that is behind the cochlea – the Eighth nerve, or central auditory nervous system. Retro-cochlear auditory dysfunction often refers only to dysfunction involving the Eighth (auditory) nerve.

Sensor

— Implanted component of the Esteem® that is used to pick up sound vibration from the incus.

Sensorineural hearing loss

— Hearing loss due to cochlear (sensory) or VIIIth nerve (neural) auditory dysfunction. Also sometimes referred to as neurosensory.

Severe hearing loss

— Hearing loss between 71 and 90 dB

Sound Processor

— Implanted device in the Esteem® system used to filter and increase the electrical signals and send them to the Driver.

Sound wave

— longitudinal pressure waves especially when transmitting audible sound.

Speaker

— A device that changes electrical signals into sounds loud enough to be heard at a distance.

Speech discrimination score

— The percentage of one-syllable words a person can identify (without visual cues), when the words are heard at a loudness level that is comfortable.

Stapes

— The innermost and smallest of the three auditory ossicles that are located in the middle ear. Its shape resembles a stirrup. The head of the stapes is attached to the lenticular process of the incus, and the footplate nearly fills the oval window and is attached there by the annular ligament.

Taste disturbance

— A condition characterized by mild alterations of the sense of taste.

Tinnitus

— The perception of a noise in the ear (e.g., ringing, cricket sound, roaring) when the internally perceived sound is absent externally.

TORP

— Total ossicular replacement prosthesis

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation

— The application of electrical current through the skin for pain control.

Tympanic membrane

— Also referred to as the eardrum, it is a thin membrane separating the ear canal from the middle ear that vibrates in response to sound energy and transmits the resulting mechanical vibrations to the structures of the middle ear.

Ultrasound

— The diagnostic or therapeutic use of ultrasound and especially a noninvasive technique involving the formation of a two-dimensional image used for the examination and measurement of internal body structures and the detection of bodily abnormalities

Vertigo

— A vestibular symptom; the patient has a spinning sensation or senses that the environment is spinning around; may have many causes; faintness, lightheadedness, or dizziness.

Vibrate

— To oscillate with a continuing periodic change relative to a fixed reference point.