Yes! A cochlear implant is an excellent tool to help you regain hearing across different environments in your life. It is common for recipients to note that communication with family, listening in doctor appointments, lectures, and visiting with friends are situations where they gain significant improvement with cochlear implants. That said, you should discuss appropriate expectations with your managing cochlear implant audiologist because outcomes are variable across people depending on hearing history. Whether you’ve had a long-standing hearing loss versus a sudden hearing loss or getting implanted as a child versus an adult with long-standing hearing loss will impact your outcomes. 

In general, speech discrimination in quiet is very significantly improved for cochlear implant recipients. It is important to understand that more complex listening environments will impact your ability to understand speech. While having a cochlear implant, and especially binaural hearing (hearing with 2 ears) is better than before implantation, environments with noisy backgrounds continue to be challenging situations for most people with hearing loss. Effective communication strategies and maximizing technology, such as remote microphone technology, will help to improve noisy environments. 

The cochlear implant is designed to help you hear and understand speech, primarily in quiet. There are mechanisms in the processor, in the programming, and the accessories that can be coupled to the cochlear implant system to help allow you to understand the most you can in any environment. The ability for someone to understand speech in a variety of settings varies from person to person. We know that cochlear implants can improve understanding significantly in quiet. We also know that cochlear implants can help some people to varying degrees in the presence of background noise. It is important to note that the cochlear implant is a tool to provide your auditory system and brain with more information to be able to interpret the auditory world around you. What your cochlear implant doesn’t know is what is the most important for you to understand. The manufacturers have developed tools to help enhance speech and reduce background noise; however, sometimes the signal that you’re trying to understand is in the middle of the noise you’re trying to ignore. You will likely still struggle a bit in complex listening environments. You will have to ability to discuss your specific needs with your programming audiologist and you can work with them to develop a plan to help you understand speech better in complex listening environments. The cochlear implant does not make your hearing normal, but it can help you be more successful and better equipped to be a part of the conversation, regardless of where it takes place. You, as the recipient, will need to set some realistic expectations for yourself about what the cochlear implant can do, and will need to actively work towards goals you set with your hearing healthcare provider. Consistency of use is a big factor, as is your willingness to employ the use of accessories that can improve your performance in background noise, like remote microphone technology.