The Sentio Bone Conduction Hearing Implant
What is the Sentio™, Bone Conduction Hearing implant?
The Sentio™ is a bone conduction hearing system made by Oticon Medical. A bone conduction hearing implant is not a hearing aid. Instead, the Sentio™ bone conduction implant is a two-part system that vibrates the bone of the skull to send sound waves directly to the inner ear. One part of the Sentio™ system is a sound processor (called the Sentio 1 Mini) (See image #1, below) and is worn behind the ear. The second part (the Sentio Ti) (#2, below) is a surgically implanted piece under the skin behind the ear (the surgery is a same day surgical procedure, i.e. outpatient procedure). The piece implanted under the skin vibrates the bone of the skull. The external sound processor picks up sound, sends a signal through skin to the internal device, which then vibrates the bone of the skull. As mentioned above, the Sentio™ conducts sound through the bone of the skull directly to the inner ear (cochlea) rather than through the middle ear -- a process known as direct bone conduction. No component of the Sentio™ bone conduction system fits inside the ear or ear canal. The Sentio™ has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a class II device. The Sentio is currently approved for individuals age 12 and older.
The Sentio 1 Mini external sound processor and the various colors available.
Who Can Benefit From an Sentio™ Bone Conduction Implant?
The Sentio™ implant is approved for anyone 12 years or older for the treatment of conductive or mixed hearing loss, as well as for unilateral, profound sensorineural hearing loss, also known as Single Sided Deafness (SSD). For more information about the different types of hearing loss, click here.
Studies indicate that patients with an air-bone gap of more than 30 dB pure-tone average (PTA = the mean threshold of 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz), will benefit significantly from a bone conduction sound processor, compared to an air conduction hearing aid (references 1-3, below).
Examples of (Some) Specific Conditions Helped by the Sentio™ Implant
- Congenital absence of the ear canal (microtia)
- Chronic ear drainage from outer or middle ear infection (since the Sentio™ does not block the outer ear canal, as is true for hearing aids, which may be a cause for aggravation of chronic ear drainage)
- Otosclerosis in an only hearing ear
- Any cause conductive or mixed hearing loss (with maximum average bone-conduction threshold of 45 dB)
- Single-sided deafness, regardless of the cause of hearing loss
For more Sentio™ product information, including fitting ranges for conductive/mixed hearing losses and single-sided deafness, please click here.
An individual wearing the Sentio™ external processor behind the left ear.
Option to Try the Oticon Bone Conduction System Before Surgery
Oticon Medical provides the ability to trial the sound of a bone conduction device prior to surgery. Such a trial can provide valuable information to the individual considering a bone conduction implant, especially those with single-sided deafness. The Oticon Medical Ponto™ bone conduction sound processor can be worn on a softband (see photo below) or a headband before surgery (For more information regarding the Ponto™, please click here). Since the Ponto™ external sound processor attached to the softband/headband is resting on skin, and not implanted, there is some sound attenuation from sound absorption by the skin. The software inside the Oticon Medical Ponto™ can partially address the sound attenuation from skin. Despite this software modification, the sound performance will be further improved with an implanted system.
Individual wearing a Ponto™ bone conduction sound processor on a softband.
(All photos courtesy of Oticon Medical)
References
1. Mylanus EA, van der Pouw KC, Snik AF, Cremers CW. Intraindividual comparison of the bone-anchored hearing aid and air-conduction hearing aids. Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery 1998;124(3):271-6.
2. De Wolf MJ, Hendrix S, Cremers CW Snik AF. Better performance with bone anchored hearing aid than acoustic devices in patients with severe airbone gap. The Laryngoscope 2011;121:613-16.
3. Bosman AJ, Snik AF, Hol MK, Mylanus EA. Evaluation of a new powerful bone-anchored hearing system: A comparison study. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology 2013; 24(6)505-13.
