This is the emotional moment a deaf woman wept as she heard her husband’s kiss for the first time thanks to a cochlear implant.
A video of the tender moment shows the pair exchanging ‘I love you’s before her husband leans in for a kiss.
They then settle back in their chairs before a doctor in the room asks the woman if she heard the kiss.
The shocked look on her face reveals that she had just registered the sound when the doctor asked her about it. Grinning from ear to ear, she says: ‘I did!’ before breaking down in tears, triggering the doctor to tear-up as well.
A cochlear implant is an electronic device that can be placed in the ears of people who are profoundly deaf to improve their hearing.
A surgical procedure is required to insert the device, part of which remains under the skin. The other part of it rests behind the patient’s ear.
An implant contains a microphone, which picks up on noises around the person wearing it. Next, a ‘speech processor’ in the implant selects sounds that the microphone picks up to highlight for the patient wearing the device.
The processor then signals a stimulator, which converts the sounds to electric impulses inside of the patient’s ear.
These impulses are then sent to the patient’s auditory nerve by an electrode array.
