Cardionics E-Scope for Cochlear Implants

Indy, LPN, LVN · Jul 30, 2012

I don't have cochlear implants or an e-scope. I have a combination of nerve damage and bone conduction hearing loss, and it's mostly on the low end of the scale. So I use a littmann electronic scope. I notice that I hear echoes in the body. For example, heart sounds in the right side, bowel sounds where there isn't bowel if they are very pronounced. You just remember what should be where, and learn to ignore the echoes somewhat.

For lung sounds, if the patient has oropharyngeal or upper tracheal secretions in abundance, it can fool ya and sound like pulmonary edema, so know your patient and what they normally do, and listen to more than just one area. For bowel sounds, I frequently hear people's portal hypertension if they have it, and that's weird. The only area where I'm not confident in my ability to figure out what I am hearing is with a pneumothorax, I have seen two that I heard air movement everywhere, nice and clear. Of course neither patient was in good shape! Other than that, I have had really good results with the electronic scope. The secret is practice, lots and lots of it. If you have to check off on a dummy due to the special equipment, spend a day or so devoted to the dummy until you can do it in your sleep. Good luck!

Whitewlf00 · Jul 31, 2012

I am profoundly deaf and use bilateral BTE's, I wish I could get the scope where you can sync your hearing aid to it, but until then I use the regular e-scope but have to take my hearing aids out. I tried with the head phones and just found it to be a pain, the silhouettes work great but are expensive and break easily. Also be careful with the e-scope, it can break easily, I have 2 and the other one is making a buzzing noise so have to mail it in to get fixed.

you just have to practice, practice, and practice, use the open lab hours to practice on the dummy and do searches on the internet for sound clips of the things u need to learn

I found that if I listen to the sound clips over and over, I learn what to listen for

I graduate from nursing school in October and I am starting my practicum on Sept 1st on a acute care floor. But my school didnt really focus on sounds too much other than using a manual blood pressure cuff with stethoscope. I took everyones blood pressure lol.

So we can do it!

ark88 · Aug 6, 2012

Thank you very much for all of the advice!! I decided to not use the direct plug in for my implant and use special headphones instead. I think the head phones work a lot better and I will be using every open lab I can get! Congratulations to you two on your accomplishments! Its great to see other deaf/HOH people go into the medical field.

iDEAF · Aug 7, 2012

Hey ark88! I'm completely deaf. In other words, I don't use hearing aids nor cochlear implants and I don't talk at all. This may be off-topic post, but I really need answers.

I don't have any luck finding answers to my below questions here. I hope you can answer one of these questions.

Being unable to speak and lipread, what do you think will affect me as a nursing student and future male nurse?

What hospitals do a great amount of deaf people usually go to?

Are you going to use interpreters for clinical nursing program? Ignore this if you don't know sign language.

ark88 · Aug 7, 2012

Hi iDEAF! Have you spoken with your disabilities advisor and directors of the nursing programs that you want to go into? I think that you can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it! As far as you not being able to hear anything at all without any aids would prevent you from being able to use a auditory stethoscope, but there are ways around it such as programs like StethView and ThinkLabs. These programs show the sounds on a PDA screen therefore you would have to remember exactly what they look like on a website and diagnose it on a patient. I am not using one of these yet since I want to try my best to use listening skills only but I have looked into these and it seems like most of them are plugged into a stethoscope. You could just use the PDA component. I spoke with my director of the program about this device and she was not against me using it if I ever needed it, but her only concern was contact patients (cleaning it for Cdiff or MRSA) and HIPPA violation. For the HIPPA violation, you would have to ensure that all of the patients documents are deleted from the PDA before leaving the premises.

As far as what hospitals a great amount of deaf people go into, thats kind of a broad question. Honestly, in my opinion, most deaf/HOH people don't even go into hospitals. Usually they stay with deaf education or something along those lines. Don't think about what hospital has the most deaf people, think about what hospital doesn't and be the first deaf person in that hospital! =)

I do not use American Sign Language fluently. I know much of it but I am a avid Cued Speech user. I haven't had a transliterator since third grade so I will not being using them in my nursing classes. I will however may take advantage of having someone take notes for me just in case I miss something the instructor says as I am writing my own notes. I would strongly suggest this! Due to my year and a half of experience as a Nurse Tech at my local hospital, I am not concerned about hearing in clinical and I have an idea of what my strengths and weaknesses are in that environment. This has helped me tremendously because I know what I need to do to advocate for myself and to make my experience at work/school a better one. Definitely get your foot in the door somewhere as a tech to help you through school!

Last but not least, talk with those instructors and directors of the program about what would need to be done to ensure your success! Best of luck to you iDEAF!

tortorRN · Aug 26, 2012

To Ark88:

I am SO excited that I found you on this website!! I have not been able to find anyone who has used the stethoscope or even anyone else who is a cochlear implant user in a nursing program! I just started last Thursday :)

I have a sensorineural bilateral profound hearing loss since birth. I've had a cochlear implant (I use Nucleus Freedom currently) for 19 years- I'm 21 now. You sound JUST like me- seriously! Because I hear so well, I don't use a lot of support services, like you.

Anyways, I used the Cardionics E-Scope while I was going through my EMT program, but it's been a couple years since then. It is SO incredibly unbelievable that the technology has not been updated in this area since at least 2008. Maybe we should push them for more upgrades to be in tune with technology- I mean cochlear implants are starting to have bluetooth capabilities. I just know it would be really nice to have a wireless stethoscope. If I were to just boot it in directly into my implant, it takes up so much time to get it all set up. I am currently looking at neck loop options where I can just plug it into the neckloop and just make sure my t-coil gets turned on. Absolutely no cords to my implant and relatively faster set up time than if i were to plug in directly. Also you could have the option of having an fm system connected to the neckloop as well so that it would be easier to hear in the clinical setting.

I was wondering what the visual options were so that I can propose them to my instructors if I need them. I don't normally take advantage of my hearing, but I want to be the best nurse I can be... who doesn't. So I am trying to at least know about all these different technologies that I could take advantage of and look into them.

I have so much to say and share- do you mind if we keep in touch via email? Go ahead and email me at [email protected] if you do! It's just been so hard to find someone who is going through the same stuff I am going through currently so it's hard to contain my excitement!!

-Tor

ark88 · Aug 27, 2012

This is very exciting Tor!! I will send you an email right now! Sorry for the delayed response. I've been trying to get into the swing of things with nursing school.

ark88 · Jun 17, 2014

It's been 2 full years and I am happy to say that I have graduated nursing school, sat for my boards yesterday and am awaiting the results for that! Yaaaaaaay.

Tortor09, did you make it out alive as well? =)

soon2bnycmhnp · Jun 23, 2014

Hope you passed

ark88 · Jun 27, 2014

Hope you passed

I did! =) I start my new graduate RN job at a local hospital on July 14th! yay!

MTL621 · Aug 20, 2014

Hi! My name is Mae. I was a BTE user for about 15 years and just recently had a cochlear implant. I am also enrolled in a practical nursing program and will start my clinicals this September. I've been using the Cardionics escope II with a neckloop for my BTE using tcoil program..now with my CI, it doesn't seem to help. Do u have any tips about how u use ur escope? I'd rather not use the headphones since it's so bulky. Thanks in advance!