Conditions of Personality Predicting Results with Cochlear Implant in Post-lingual Patients with Long-time Hearing Deprivation

Abstract

Introduction: In the individuals with post-lingual deafness, one of the mostly questioned topics about the efficiency of the results of the implant is the time of hearing deprivation. In the cochlear implant group of HCFMUSP [Clinics Hospital of the Medical School of the University of São Paulo], we found implanted patients with long time sensorial deprivation, but not necessarily with poor audiological outcomes. Objective: To identify conditions of personality predicting good results in post-lingual patients with long-time hearing deprivation. Method: Retrospective study of cases series. We reviewed Wartegg's tests carried out prior to IC, in patients with post-lingual loss and who had hearing deprivation for longer than 10 years upon surgery. The test's results were related and compared to their auditory outcomes, two years after cochlear implant. Results: The deafness incidence and the time of deprivation do not interfere with the results. As for the conditions of personality, patients with good audiological results presented a well-structured ego, easiness for affective interchanges which favors the facing of difficult situations and concretization of ideas, besides spontaneity in the projection of their contents. Those who presented unsatisfactory results have not a very clear view of themselves, difficulty for interpersonal contacts, production according to their potential, poor level of assertion, self-aggressive tendencies in addition to no response according to the situations. Conclusion: The preoperative psychological evaluation may identify conditions of differentiated personality in patients with good audiological results, although they have a long-time deprivation.

Keywords

• Cochlear implant
• Evaluation
• Psychology
• Deafness
• Adult