Unlike hearing aids, which make sounds louder, cochlear implants do the work of damaged parts of the inner ear (cochlea) to provide sound signals to the brain. These consist of both internal implanted electrodes and magnets and external components. The quality of sound is different than natural hearing but may enable the recipient to better recognize speech and environmental sounds. Because of risk and expense, such surgery is reserved for cases of severe and disabling hearing impairment
Management of sensorineural hearing loss involves employing strategies to support existing hearing such as lip-reading, enhanced communication etc. and amplification using hearing aids. Hearing aids are specifically tuned to the individual hearing loss to give maximum benefit. Research
Pharmaceuticals
Antioxidant vitamins – Researchers at the University of Michigan report that a combination of high doses of vitamins A, C, and E, and Magnesium, taken one hour before noise exposure and continued as a once-daily treatment for five days, was very effective at preventing permanent noise-induced hearing loss in animals. Tanakan – a brand name for an international prescription drug extract of Ginkgo biloba. It is classified as a vasodilator. Among its research uses is treatment of sensorineural deafness and tinnitus presumed to be of vascular origin. Coenzyme Q10 – a substance similar to a vitamin, with antioxidant properties. It is made in the body, but levels fall with age.
They will perceive sounds differently, yet the audiogram suggests that they have the same degree of loss. Huss and Moore investigated how hearing impaired patients perceive pure tones, and found that they perceive tones as noisy and distorted, more (on average) than a person without a hearing impairment. However, they also found that the perception of tones as being like noise, was not directly related to frequencies within the dead regions, and was therefore not an indicator of a dead region. This therefore suggests that audiograms, and their poor representation of dead regions, are inaccurate predictors of a patients perception of pure tone quality.Research by Kluk and Moore  has shown that dead regions may also affect the patients perception of frequencies beyond the dead regions. There is an enhancement in the ability to distinguish between tones that differ very slightly in frequency, in regions just beyond the dead regions compared to tones further away. An explanation for this may be that cortical re-mapping has occurred. Whereby, neurons which would normally be stimulated by the dead region, have been reassigned to respond to functioning areas near it. This leads to an over-representation of these areas, resulting in an increased perceptual sensitivity to small frequency differences in tones. Vestibulocochlear nerve pathology
congenital deformity of the internal auditory canal,
neoplastic and pseudo-neoplastic lesions, with special detailed emphasis on schwannoma of the eighth cranial nerve (acoustic neuroma),
non-neoplastic Internal Auditory Canal/CerebelloPontine Angle pathology, including vascular loops,

Diagnosis
Case history
Before examination, a case history provides guidance about the context of the hearing loss.