Cochlear Implant Troubleshooting Tips For Sound Processor

Have you ever encountered your sound processor randomly shutting off, constantly flashing red and beeping or just turning red with a constant beep when powering on?   These indicators may mislead you into believing your processors are failing ... when in fact, it could be something as simple as a battery, headpiece or cord problem.

As a parent of a child with cochlear implants, we often found ourselves replacing the processors when it wasn't always necessary.  Here are some simple troubleshooting tips you can try prior to contacting your audiologist or CI manufacturer to replace your processor.

First, always check your headpiece and sound cord. We found with our son’s CI processor that the intermittent beeping was caused more often than not, by a bad sound cord. With the headpiece on his head, we tested this out by just jiggling the cord to see if that caused the processor to beep.  If so, we replaced it with a new sound cord which usually resolved the problem.

Why is my cochlear implant sound processor not working?On other occasions, we found our son’s processor constantly beeping and flashing red while the headpiece was on his head.  This could mean the headpiece doesn’t have a good connection with the implant.  The easiest way to test for this problem is by switching out the headpiece to see if that resolves the problem.

We have also experienced our son’s processor randomly shutting off and other times the power light turned red with a long continuous beep or flashed red several times before shutting off. After going through the aforementioned troubleshooting procedures, we thought something was wrong with the processor. However; after replacing the old rechargeable batteries with new ones, the processors began to work. Sometimes when a rechargeable battery is showing it’s charged, we think it is good to use, but this is not always the case. Over time rechargeable batteries will lose their ability to power your cochlear implant processor, even though the charger shows the batteries are fully charged and ready to use.

When it comes to issues with cochlear implant processors not working properly, try checking the following items first as it may save you time and expense.

Batteries

Sound Cord

Headpiece

If you have experienced similar problems or other issues with your CI processors, we invite you to share your tips.

#cochlearimplants      #troubleshootingTips

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