Dr. Nancy Young, MD
Will you Join Us
Make A Difference to Children with Hearing Loss
Your gift today will help fund crucial services provided by the Audiology and Cochlear Implant Program at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Lurie Children’s top expertise has changed the lives of many children with hearing loss and made the cochlear implantation program the world’s largest.
- Hearing Aid Technician Providing fittings, repairs and ear molds
- Bilingual Social Workers Supporting newly identified families of children with hearing loss
- Special Equipment Purchases such as an Auditory Brainstem Response machine allowing infants to be tested unsedated in the clinic
FHSR IMPACT
In 2010, FHSR and Lurie established the Hart Family Cochlear Implant Education Coordinator, to support implanted children before and after implantation. FHSR continues the funding support of this key role providing a crucial support service that places implanted children on a positive trajectory for services and appropriate school placement.
Leading a group of 18 multidisciplinary professionals at Lurie Children’s, Nancy Young, MD, the Lillian S. Wells Professor in Pediatric Otolaryngology, is medical director of the hospital’s Audiology and Cochlear Implant Programs and has grown the program into the world’s largest and most comprehensive pediatric audiology and cochlear implant programs in the nation. Lurie Children’s continues to expand its status as a worldwide leader in evaluating and implanting children with multiple or complex medical issues, and providing essential services and key staff positions some of which were made possible by FHSR funding.
Lurie Children’s pediatric audiology team excels at meeting the unique challenges in the care of each child and is intensifying research to bring forth better treatments. To date, experts have completed more than 2,220 cochlear implantations. In the last year—a time like no other due to the pandemic— their attention to children’s needs remained unwavering and 115 implantations were performed. Protecting patients, families and staff from viral spread required new care protocols and safety measures for everyone in the hospital. Despite these added precautions that required extra time to prepare for each patient visit and procedure, Lurie Children’s Section of Otology/Neurotology maintained the service necessary for every child who needed our expertise, diagnosing 194 children with permanent hearing loss and initiating treatments in the last fiscal year, dispensing over 200 loaner hearing aids to children allowing them to not miss a beat or a moment of their hearing life. In addition, the Lurie team remains the largest provider in Illinois of auditory brainstem response (ABR) tests. In 2021, they conducted 334 sedated tests and 195 natural sleep tests, a marked increase in tests over the prior year. This test provides an objective, reliable means of diagnosing hearing loss in infants and young children, as well as older children with developmental challenges, for whom testing with behavioral methods is not accurate.
The hospital has expanded Audiology services at all the satellite centers including Westchester, Northbrook and Skokie. In the last year, these locations proved very important for patient families who were hesitant to come downtown but still needed care for their child.
To learn more about what is happening in the clinic today, view the FHSR IMPACT REPORT
BE A PART OF IT ALL.
Give the gift of hearing.
Every contribution to FHSR helps improve the lives of children with hearing loss.
We hope you will consider making a gift to support these children. Thank you!
