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US 10,500,392 B2Granted
Monitoring stimulating assembly insertion
AssigneeCochlear Limited
InventorsJohn Michael Heasman, Peter Gibson, Stephen O'Leary, Luke Campbell
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Presented herein are techniques for monitoring the insertion of an intra-cochlear stimulating assembly for the occurrence of one or more insertion stop conditions. The insertion stop conditions are detectable events indicating that movement of the stimulating assembly into a recipient's cochlea should be at least temporarily stopped. The insertion monitoring is based on objectively measured inner ear potentials, such as acoustically-evoked potentials.
Claims23
A method, comprising:
- during insertion of a stimulating assembly into a cochlea of a recipient, monitoring, at an intra-operative system, acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials obtained from the cochlea of the recipient;
- at the intra-operative system, detecting, based on the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials, a target stop condition associated with a predetermined target stop point, wherein the target stop condition comprises a relative change in the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials indicating that one or more stimulating contacts of the stimulating assembly are located at a tonotopic position corresponding to a pre-operatively defined insertion stop frequency;
- and
- responsive to detection of the target stop condition, initiating, at the intra-operative system, a feedback mechanism indicating that the stimulating assembly has been inserted to a target insertion depth and to stop insertion of the stimulating assembly into the cochlea.
1 more element
A system, comprising:
- a receiver configured to receive, from a cochlear implant during insertion of a stimulating assembly of the cochlear implant into a cochlea of a recipient, acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials, and
- a processor configured to detect from the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials, an occurrence of an insertion stop condition,
- wherein the insertion stop condition is selected from a group comprising:
- an error stop condition comprising a change in the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials indicative of a mechanical impedance change of a basilar membrane of the recipient, and
- a target stop condition comprising a relative change in the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials indicating that one or more stimulating contacts of the stimulating assembly are located at a tonotopic position corresponding to a pre-operatively defined insertion stop frequency.
2 more elements
A method, comprising:
- during insertion of a stimulating assembly into a cochlea of a recipient, monitoring, at an intra-operative system, acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials obtained from the cochlea of the recipient;
- at the intra-operative system, detecting, based on the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials, an error stop condition associated with an error stop point, wherein the error stop condition comprises a change in the acoustically-evoked inner ear potentials indicative of a mechanical impedance change of a basilar membrane of the recipient;
- and
- responsive to detection of the error stop condition, initiating, at the intra-operative system, a feedback mechanism indicating that the stimulating assembly has interfered with a basilar membrane of the cochlea and to stop insertion of the stimulating assembly into the cochlea.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.