Tinnitus Part 3: Tinnitus Management

There are a variety of different treatments for managing tinnitus available. Below I will summarize the key points of some of these protocols; your audiologist can help you decide which would work best for management of your tinnitus.

1. Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT):

One of the most widely known tinnitus management programs is TRT. The model and program were published in 1990 by neuroscientist Pawel Jastreboff. His program works towards helping patients habituate to their tinnitus. Habituation refers to the process of reducing responsiveness to something by repeated presentation. TRT achieves habituation in two different ways described below.

The first part is done through different types counseling; the goal is to assist in habituating to and decreasing the emotional response to the tinnitus. This portion is meant to help remove fears and anxieties related to the tinnitus. It can include anything from basic informational counseling done with your audiologist to one-on-one or group therapy with a psychologist that is experienced with tinnitus counseling. 

Part two of the habituation process is sound therapy. This part is meant to help minimize the perception of the tinnitus. For those with hearing loss as well as tinnitus this can be done with hearing aids that contain some type of noise generator. For those with normal hearing a similar device can be worn, it simply doesn’t have amplification for hearing. Sound therapy is accomplished through long-term use of constant low-level sound. This constant sound is considered unimportant/insignificant to your brain and often helps to distract you from your tinnitus and retrain your brain to put the tinnitus in the same “unimportant” category as the low-level sound.

For more information on TRT please visit: http://www.tinnitus-pjj.com/

2. Neuromonics:

Another well known program for management of tinnitus is called Neuromonics Tinnitus Therapy. It was invented by Paul Davis, Ph.D. Neuromonics is actually a company based out of Sydney, Australia, but has an office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This program utilizes a small processor that plays spectrally modified music embedded with an acoustic neural stimulus. This specially designed music is customized for each users audiological and tinnitus profile. Music is deemed a good medium for this type of therapy as it is pleasant to listen to, is relaxing, and is dynamic (it allows for intermittent stimulation). The program included with the music processor device incorporates ongoing personalized support, education, and monitoring from an audiologist specializing in tinnitus. The program has five basic steps: 1. Personal Assessment, 2. Fitting of the Neuromonics Device, 3. Stage I Therapy (this stage is meant to relieve symptoms; the device is used at least 2 hours per day for up to two months), 4. Stage II Therapy (this portion helps the retrain the neural connections of the brain to help filter out the tinnitus; the hope is to receive relief from the tinnitus without regular use of the device. It is worn up to two hours per day and gradually reduced over a four month period), 5. Maintenance (using the device 2-4 hours per day if at all to help maintain the benefit achieved).

For more information on Neuromonics please visit: http://www.neuromonics.com/

 3. Other Sound Generators: Click here to read further