In a groundbreaking surgery, a Rajasthan hospital has successfully implanted an AI-powered cochlear implant in a young girl, offering hope for restoring her hearing and speech.
In a first for the government hospitals in the state, an artificial intelligence-based smart cochlear implant has been implanted in the ear of a three-year-old girl at the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences here.
The girl is stable after the nearly three-hour-long successful surgery and is expected to begin hearing and speaking within about 21 days, Dr Mohnish Grover, senior professor in the ENT department, said.
"This is the first such advanced cochlear implant procedure performed at the government hospital in the state, and it could open new possibilities in the treatment of hearing-impaired children," he said.
Dr Grover said the girl had been suffering from congenital hearing impairment, which posed a major challenge for normal hearing and speech development.
She was not completely deaf since birth and could sense sounds. However, after the age of two, she gradually stopped hearing altogether.
Dr Grover said the implant contains a high-speed processing chip that improves sound quality. The internal implant placed inside the ear can function for nearly 30 years, while the battery of the external sound processor can last up to three years.
He said the implant uses a smart nerve technology that helps determine the correct placement during surgery. It also has internal memory to store the patient's mapping and data, and can be updated periodically like a smartphone.
Medical Education Department Commissioner Naresh Kumar Goyal said the procedure marks an important step towards providing advanced medical services in the state and will help strengthen efforts to offer modern healthcare facilities to patients within Rajasthan.