View of the December 2024 newsletter in your browser
In November, I was very happy to represent EURO-CIU with Sari Hirvonen-Skarbo, at theEuropean Day of Persons with Disabilities (EDPD) in the European Commission. You can readSari’s report in this newsletter. In this EDPD we forged stronger links with other hearing lossorganisations.
At the EDPD someone mentioned that “Accessibility should be accessible”. That soundsobvious but, in recent weeks, it has become clear that T-coils for use with induction loops havebeen quietly discontinued from almost all new CI processors, and also from many hearing aids. EURO-CIU does not support this move. Now we have a crazy situation where public buildingshave to be equipped with induction loops for accessibility, but manufacturers are preventing theirpractical use! We call on all hearing instrument manufacturers to reinstate T-coils to theirdevices and also to have them enabled by default. Some CI users use T-coil a lot, for exampleto access church, theatre and counter services. Induction loops are simple and reliabletechnology that has been around for 50 years. There is a false expectation that Auracast, whenit eventually comes along, will replace T-coils. However, EURO-CIU expects that T-coils andAuracast will coexist for some time at least, because each solution has pros and cons.
In this newsletter you can read about our next Symposium and General Assembly in Istanbul. Please note that there will be elections for Secretary (Pieter is standing down) and for secondVice-President. It is vital that we fill these roles. If you are interested to join the board andspread your CI advocacy wings, please contact any existing board member for moreinformation.
As this year draws to a close, my Christmas came early! I had the great pleasure to briefly meetProfessor Graeme Clark in Melbourne. He’s a very nice and humble man, still very excitedabout how technology such as AI will change CI in the future. I said to him that, as an electronicengineer, it never ceases to amaze me how much we can understand from just 22 electrodes. His response: “Me too!”.
With warmest wishes for the festive season and a productive 2025.
Robert Mandara
President, EURO-CIU
View of the September 2024 newsletter in your browser
I hope that you have enjoyed nice summer holidays. The summer months have been relatively quiet as far as CI conferences are concerned, but momentum is clearly building up again now as we head into autumn.
The EURO-CIU Summer Camp in Telč, Czech Republic, was a resounding success! You can read more about it below.
SAVE THE DATE! EURO-CIU’s next Symposium 30 years of EURO-CIU: Past, Present and Future will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 4th-5th April 2025. Our 30th anniversary is a good time to reflect on what has been achieved over the last decades, as well as to recognise the challenges that we will face in the future.
We must elect a Vice-President and Secretary to our board in Istanbul. If you would be interested in one of these roles, please make your interest known to your EURO-CIU member association. Of course, you can also contact existing board members for more information.
Robert Mandara
President, EURO-CIU
View of the June 2024 newsletter in your browser
A very long winter suddenly turned to summer here in Finland, where we have enjoyed the warmest and driest May on record. I hope that you are all prepared for summer, with waterproof CI covers for swimming, as well as hats and drying boxes to protect your CIs from sweat.
You may have seen the recent exciting news from the UK about the first successful gene therapy treatment to restore hearing. This is the first step on a very long road, but one can’t help but wonder what it will mean for cochlear implants. For sure, nothing is going to change overnight. Over 400 genes relate to hearing loss, and this therapy targets just one of them. There are many open questions and nobody knows how long the treatment will last. Besides, gene therapy will not restore all kinds of hearing loss, so CI certainly has a future. As often is the case, there are a range of views on this development but, at EURO-CIU, I hope that we warmly welcome and encourage research into this new possibility to restore hearing.
There is a risk that CI candidates may be tempted to wait for this new treatment to become available. If you are a candidate for CI, it is important that you can hear now, not to lose decades to deafness, waiting for what might never come.
For the first time since 2019, EURO-CIU in conjunction with SUKI, will be holding a summer camp for young CI users in July, in Czech Republic. The camp is fully subscribed already. Besides providing fun and peer support for participants, the camp is really important to inspire the CI advocates of tomorrow.
The board of EURO-CIU wish you all a lovely summer!
Robert Mandara (President, EURO-CIU)
View of the March 2024 newsletter in your browser
Post-pandemic, the number of face-to-face cochlear implant events is steadily increasing.
In February, EURO-CIU were very well represented at CI2024 in Las Palmas De Gran Canaria. You can read more about it in this newsletter as well as the other events mentioned below.
We hope to see you at EURO-CIU’s 14th Symposium Steps on the way to hearing with cochlear implants in Vienna on 4th – 5th April, and General Assembly (members only) on 6th April. https://eurociu2024.com/. To ensure quorum, I would like to remind non-attending members to kindly complete a procuration to an attending member.
I will be representing EURO-CIU at Stichting Plots & Laat Doven’s International congress 2024 ‘Let’s Connect 2 congress on March 22nd-24th in The Netherlands, and CIICA’s CI Advocacy In Action: First Global Conference May 9th-10th in Belgium.
EURO-CIU Summer camp 2024 will be held in July in Czech Republic. If you are going to, please register very soon, as there are a limited number of spaces remaining.
I wish you all a nice springtime, and hope to meet and exchange ideas with you at the above events.
Robert Mandara (President)
