HEARING IMPLANT:
Dr. Jim Milligan
Saint John’s surgeon Dr. Jim Milligan operates on
patients who are good candidates for an advanced-technology,
bone-anchored hearing implant. Patients are fitted with the
titanium BAHA hearing device from Cochlear Implants, which
clips on to a bone screw implanted behind the ear in the
skull.
Milligan is the only physician in Madison County performing
this procedure, and only six other cities in Indiana are
equipped with physicians offering this service.
During surgery, a bone screw is implanted opposite the
patient’s best hearing ear. “So if the left ear is a dead
ear, but you have a normal hearing ear on the right, you put
the bone screw on the left,” Milligan explains. “Two
candidates have received the bone-anchored hearing implant
so far, and we’ve got hopefully 3 to 4 more candidates.
We’re just waiting to get approval,” Milligan says.
Good candidates for this procedure include patients who’ve
suffered chronic ear disease, tumors in the ear, those who
have canal atresia (or the absence of an ear canal), or
patients born without an ear. “You may have a cochlea, but
nothing else to go to the ear—no canal, and no bones. As
long as you have the nerves, that’s all you need to undergo
this procedure.”
It’s important to note that this is not a hearing aid, which
works only based on air transmission. The BAHA system
transmits mechanical energy rather than sound energy,
Milligan explains. “Once patients are fitted with the
device, six months after the initial surgery, it acts as a
transformer,” he says. “The BAHA device picks up sound
energy from the ear, and transmits it into mechanical
energy, and that’s what’s transmitted into the bone screw.”
The bone screw’s mechanical energy is transferred across the
skull, although patients will not perceive that, Milligan
explains. “The frequencies transmitted through the cochlea
turn into sound energy again, proceeding through the ear as
hearing.”
Milligan says the BAHA hearing device is similar to the
audiant implants from Xomed Surgical Products, which were
the go-to hearing implant about 25 years ago. “It’s the same
alloy and the same type of procedure. And the device also
works along the same lines,” he says. On patients with
longer hair, the BAHA device can be hidden behind the ear,
snapping onto the bone-implanted screw.
One of the first patients to have this procedure at Saint
John’s was Megan Stokes. “She was a good candidate, because
she had just one hearing ear, with just one nerve that
worked.” When Stokes is ready to be fitted with the hearing
device after 6 months, sound will bypass the nonworking ear
and will be transmitted to her best hearing air through
direct bone conduction.
For more information on bone-implanted hearing procedures
offered at Saint John’s, call the Health Resource Line at
642-3301. |
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Patient Testimonials
Learn About Dr. Milligan
Learn About the Procedure |
