The optimal individual parameter setting of a cochlear implant (CI) is crucial for the patient's hearing ability, speech understanding, and thus the success of the therapy. The configuration of CI parameters is commonly referred to as the fitting procedure. Current clinical workflows rely on manual CI fitting, which is labor-intensive, costly, and highly dependent on subjective judgments, resulting in inconsistent outcomes. Moreover, this approach is unsuitable for patient groups with limited cooperation, such as infants and young children. Due to resource constraints, regular readjustments of CI fittings are also severely limited.

The aim of the ICoStim project is to create a novel method for objective and individualized fitting of the stimulation parameters of CIs. This innovative method combines current technological and methodological research results in mobile EEG hardware, auditory stimulation and objective determination of stimulation parameters based on EEG, as well as dry EEG sensor technology and sensor applicators.

In this talk, partners from Technische Universität Ilmenau (Prof. Patrique Fiedler) and Hannover Medical School (Prof. Waldo Nogueira) will provide an overview of the state of the art in dry electrode technology and auditory stimulation for CI objective fitting. Based on preliminary results, they will outline the project aims and key research areas as well as their vision of the ICoStim fully integrated closed-loop fitting device for CIs.