Sound Therapy for Tinnitus

Abstract

　Many patients with tinnitus have noticed that their tinnitus varies in severity in different acoustical environments. Tinnitus is more intrusive and bothersome in silent environments, while being less severe in sound-enriched environments, suggesting that therapeutic strategies using sound (sound therapy) may be effective for the relief of tinnitus. Sound therapy has been developed together with directed counseling as tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT), based on the neurophysiological model of tinnitus. The effectiveness of sound therapy using hearing aids is still under investigation, but it has been suggested that it is effective in about 80% of the patients. In this manuscript, we present a review of sound therapy for tinnitus using hearing aids.