Treatment of Tinnitus and Hyperacusis
If you are interested in receiving individualized recommendations, we suggest you schedule a full 120-minute assessment.
This assessment involves individualized testing and recommendations for you. The Tinnitus and Hyperacusis clinic offers a variety of options for a person suffering from tinnitus and/or hyperacusis to include full individualized, monitored treatments such as TRT (Tinnitus Retraining Therapy) and Neuromonics Tinnitus Treatment. This Clinic provides basic sound enrichment programs and Soundspace, as well. For those patients with significant hearing loss in addition to tinnitus, we are pleased to offer the ReSound LIVE and Widex MIND in TRT protocols. Soft Sound Sensitivity Syndrome is a term related to a special case of hyperacusis involving strong reactions to soft sounds. Very often these soft sounds involve bodily noises of others such as those that occur with lip smacking, eating, breathing and speaking. This type of hyperacusis often occurs around puberty and most often with girls. This Clinic follows Dr. Pawel Jastreboff’s recommended treatment guidelines. The most common treatments of tinnitus and Hyperacusis include "masking", "Tinnitus Retraining Therapy" (TRT) and "Neuromonics". Masking therapy involves the use of instrumentation that masks the tinnitus, however, is not the preferred method of treatment for many reasons. TRT involves both directive counseling and sound therapy to "habituate" the tinnitus so that it is a "non issue" in the patient’s life. What is habituation? Our brain and nervous system learn to ignore sounds (or other types of sensations) that have no connection with anything negative. For example, we don’t actively listen to air conditioners or other continuous background sounds. Such sounds are simply part of the background sound environment. The goal of TRT is to render tinnitus to the status of meaningless background sound that is easily ignored. Successful habituation to tinnitus would result in a person commenting, "I haven’t noticed my tinnitus all day" or "I haven’t noticed my tinnitus in days". If there is no awareness of tinnitus, the tinnitus is not a problem. A study in 2004 compared the results of masking therapy with TRT and initially showed that both groups improved equally during the first six months of treatment. However, after the six months, the TRT group improved more than the masking group. TRT has received worldwide recognition since it was first defined by Dr. Pawel Jastreboff in 1990. Jastreboff claims 80% + success rate in reducing the annoyance of tinnitus with TRT. The Staff of The Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Clinic have been trained by Dr. Jastreboff. |
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