Enriched Acoustic Environment as a customized treatment for tinnitus: A non-controlled longitudinal study

Abstract

Tinnitus is a heterogeneous hearing disorder with no cure at present, but some treatments, such as a combination of counselling and sound therapy, can alleviate the discomfort it causes. The sound therapy efficiency depends on both the type of sound stimulus and the time of exposure. This study describes the fundamentals of a personalized sound therapy that stimulates the auditory system with either continuous or sequential sounds whose spectra are adjusted to the hearing levels of the participants. This sound therapy is called Enriched Acoustic Environment and is assessed in a sample of 137 participants with tinnitus. Tinnitus-related distress relief was clinically relevant and statistically significant for 90% of these patients. This was quantified as a mean decrease of 24.3 points on the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory. 31% of participants were treated with sequential stimuli and achieved greater relief of distress (29.4 points on their Tinnitus Handicap Inventory score) compared to those treated with continuous sound (69%). According to these results, sequential sound seems to be optimal compared to continuous sound.

Keywords: Enriched acoustic environment; Sound therapy; Tinnitus; Tinnitus handicap inventory.

Fig. 1

Flow diagram of participants in this study.

Fig. 2

Average HL of the 78 males and 45 females who finished the treatment. Shaded areas display the 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. 3

(a) A tone-burst of 20 ms and f = 1000 Hz, (b) a tone-pip with (α,γ)=(3,300), and (c) a gammatone at f = 1000 Hz.

Fig. 4

Log-spectra of the tone-burst, tone-pip and gammatone of Fig. 3.

Fig. 5

Right and left HL curves.

Fig. 6

(a) Right and (b) left sequences of tone-pips. Spectrograms of (c) left and (d) right sequences of tone-pips.

Fig. 7

(a) Right and (b) left log-spectra of the continuous EAE stimulus. The HL curves are superimposed for comparison.

Fig. 8

Average THI score change over time for the different severity grade subgroups. Shaded areas display the 95% confidence interval.

Fig. 9

Average THI score change for (a) sequential and (b) continuous EAE stimulus types.