Full Postoperative Insertion of Partially Inserted Cochlear Implants

[0018]Patients with sufficient preoperative residual hearing should have a short electrode array inserted into the cochlea. In the unfortunate cases where the patients postoperatively loses their residual hearing, embodiments of the present invention than convert the short electrode array into a long one without additional surgery. For example, the right side of FIG. 2B shows the potential increase in speech understanding if a 20 mm array is postoperatively increased to 28 mm. By providing a mechanism for such postoperative full (or further) insertion of a partially inserted electrode array without additional surgery, implantation patients can avoid reduced speech perception due to an unnecessarily short electrode array.

[0019]One such arrangement for an electrode storage device for a cochlear implant system is shown in FIG. 3. The electrode storage device 300 is configured to contain an electrode transition section of a cochlear implant electrode that includes a distal end portion of t