DOTHAN, Ala. – Doris Parker can hear grandchildren. She can hear the birds sing. She can hear motorcycles rumble by outside her home.
For the longest time, she couldn’t hear much of anything even with hearing aids. So, she turned to a surgical option with a cochlear implant.
“Hearing aids can be irritable,” Parker said. “Over time, they didn’t help at all.”
In November, Parker received a cochlear implant. But rather than travel farther away to her surgeon for follow-up care, the Altha, Florida, resident drives about an hour to Hearing Associates of Dothan. Her cochlear implant was activated in December.
Now, her husband jokes about her hearing too well.
“I can hear my grandkids better and understand them,” Parker said.
Like Parker, local cochlear implant patients have to travel outside of the Dothan area to receive their surgical implants. And only two local practices – Hearing Associates of Dothan and ENT South – are listed with manufacturer Cochlear Americas, which is one of the three main cochlear implant manufacturers in the U.S.
Hearing Associates of Dothan has partnered with surgeons in Birmingham and Opelika, providing initial evaluations and then follow-up services such as device activation and programming, which may not happen for weeks after the implant surgery. Since they joined the Cochlear Americas network in October, Hearing Associates has worked with three cochlear implant patients.