Many of you have worries or wondered about loss of inner ear function so I emailed Dr. Della Santina who I saw and considered for my laby at Johns Hopkins and we still keep in touch. So I emailed him last night and he responded. You can read below. It's here!!!! Hi Joe, We just got FDA approval to start our clinical trial. I still have some hoops to jump through with setting it up at the university, then I will send out an announcement to you and everyone else who has requested updates. I hope it will work well for people with vestibular sensation loss due to inner ear hair cell damage. From our animal research, I expect that it will work, but we won’t know until we do the study. Charley Della Santina From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 3:39 PM To: Charley Della Santina Subject: vestibular prosthesis Dr. Della Santina, Thank you for your dedication to a vestibular prosthesis, i was reading about the implant on the Johns Hopkins website and was wondering if it is currently in clinical trials? If it is not currently in trial when can we expect to hear something about a coming trial? Is there currently an implantable vestibular prosthesis in Europe available? Does this technology hold great promise for those with balance disorders/ bilateral vestibular loss. Regards, Joe
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/otolaryngology/research/vestibular/VNEL Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory Mission: Restore Balance to Those Disabled by Bilateral Loss of Vestibular Sensation For tens of thousands of people who suffer from severe loss of vestibular sensation due to genetic defects, drug reactions, Ménière’s disease, viral infection or other inner ear diseases, a new device in development at Johns Hopkins may alleviate symptoms of the balance disorder, including chronic disequilibrium and difficulty seeing while walking or driving. Charles Della Santina, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins Charles C. Della Santina, Director of the Vestibular NeuroEngineering Lab In recent studies in animals, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Lab have shown that a damaged sense of balance can be restored effectively with a multichannel vestibular prosthesis device implanted in the inner ear. “The inner ear measures how your head is oriented and how it’s moving,” explains Charles C. Della Santina, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Division of Otology, Neurotology and Skull Base Surgery and Director of the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory. “That information drives reflexes that keep you from falling and keep your vision steady. Without it, you feel wobbly and the world seems to drift whenever you move your head.” Since 2002, members of the VNEL been developing and testing increasingly sophisticated versions of the Johns Hopkins Multichannel Vestibular Prosthesis (MVP), which includes multiple sensors and channels of processing allowing it to measure and encode head rotation in all directions. Animal trials show that the device effectively mimics the workings of the inner ear, by sensing head rotation and transmitting that information to the brain through selective electrical stimulation of branches of the vestibular nerve. Johns Hopkins Multichannel Vestibular Prosthesis Johns Hopkins Multichannel Vestibular Prosthesis While many people with profoundly impaired balance ultimately resume normal daily life after rehabilitation, others remain disabled. “There are no adequate treatment options for these patients,” says Della Santina. “Our recent results are exciting because they define a clear path toward the multichannel vestibular prosthesis that will eventually restore a sense of balance for our patients.” Read more about the research