• Question: Do you research into why people are deaf and blind from birth?

    Asked by alexanderg123 to Lilly on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      I personally don’t but there are people who do, and I could possibly look into it in the future. Deafblindness from birth is often a result of something going wrong in a child’s development before they are born and these are the sorts of conditions I look into. This can be the result of mutations in their genes that cause something to go wrong or from a traumatic pregnancy or premature birth. A lot of the time the child will also have other complicated symptoms too. I would be interested in researching the reasons why people are born with deafblindness, especially if I could come up with a reason or way to help.

Comments

  • Photo: alexanderg123

    alexanderg123 commented on :

    Thank you for your reply 🙂 I know some people that are deaf can be cured with hearing aids and operations but if there is damage to the inner ear, this is not possible. It would be great to know how to cure this! Thanks again!

  • Photo: Lilly

    Lilly commented on :

    You’re mostly right there, as if it is damage from birth or something has gone wrong in the development of the inner ear then this is something we can’t really treat. In your inner ear there are also sensitive hair cells in the cochlea (a part of your inner ear). Damage to these occurs naturally in life, especially if you listen to loud music or are exposed to loud noises at work. So this is a type of damage to your inner ear that can actually be treated with hearing aids or even a cochlear implant. This is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides some sound to the person, although it’s not like the normal sound that people can naturally hear. So we’ve come a little way in solving this! 🙂