Reimbursement for Cochlear Implants Granted for Children and Young People with Severe Hearing Loss or Deafness

From January 1, 2024, reimbursement for cochlear implants for children and young people will be expanded. This decision follows the CICADE research by the Research Group Experimental Oto-Rino-Laryngology (ExpORL) of KU Leuven, in collaboration with Ghent University, UZA and the European Institute for ORL-HNS of the Sint-Augustinus Hospital. The research was coordinated by Professor Astrid van Wieringen, also program director of the speech therapy and audiological sciences course.

The research found that deafness in one ear has a huge impact on children and young people. This applies to both mental well-being and social and cognitive development. This makes it difficult for them to distinguish which direction sound is coming from. This causes problems in the classroom, during social contacts or in traffic.

Children learn all day long, very often in a noisy environment, at school, while playing with friends, at the table with the family… Learning to produce and understand spoken language must be learned during the first years of life and the ability to hear subtle differences between speech sounds is essential. It helps if you have two ears.

Astrid Van Wieringen

According to the study, the solution is a cochlear implant. This is an electronic medical device for people with (very) severe hearing loss. It directly controls the auditory nerve, making it more powerful than a hearing aid. After about ten years of research, it was proven that children with one-sided deafness experience a positive evolution with a cochlear implant, both in terms of language skills and understanding speech in noise.

However, such an implant easily costs 15,000 euros, without taking into account the five-yearly replacement of the processor and lifelong aftercare. That is why Minister Vandenbroucke decided to extend the reimbursement. He recently visited UZ Leuven.