Audiology features
Mindfulness based approaches to tinnitus management: meditations on a new approach
Psychological approaches to tinnitus There is now widespread agreement that an individual’s interpretation of tinnitus can determine how distressing they find it. If tinnitus is regarded as non-threatening then habituation normally follows. If, however, tinnitus is interpreted as threatening, habituation...
What do animal models tell us about tinnitus and hyperacusis?
Do animals have tinnitus? The obvious question to ask is: do animals have tinnitus? It is known that tinnitus is a conscious percept and as such affected by attention and not audible during sleep. For it to be demonstrated that...
The European TINNET COST Action BM1306
Winfried Schlee describes how a major European funding award is bringing together experts who are committed to collectively developing a better understanding of tinnitus. This work is vital if we are to pioneer effective treatments for the condition in its...
Clinical WG1. Establishing a standard for tinnitus: patient assessment and characterisation
Rilana Cima and Haúla Haider introduce an ambitious pan-European collaboration that seeks to establish guidelines for achieving best clinical practice for managing, assessing and treating patients with different tinnitus profiles. Tinnitus heterogeneity is the major reason for inconsistent results in...
Database WG2. The Tinnitus Patient Database in the TINNET COST Action BM1306
Berthold Langguth describes an innovative project that is creating the world’s largest multi-national patient database containing standardised information on tinnitus and medical history, otological examination and psycho-acoustic measures of tinnitus. A challenge for tinnitus treatment and tinnitus research is the...
Neuroimaging WG3. Neuroimaging as a window on the heterogeneity of tinnitus
Pim van Dijk and Sven Vanneste describe the hope that brain imaging techniques used for research will provide a better understanding of the heterogeneity of tinnitus through large-scale analysis. Their project will create a procedure whereby researchers can submit their...
Genetics WG4. Improving diagnosis and drug development through the genetic understanding of tinnitus subtypes: a TINNET endeavour
Christopher R Cederroth and Jose Antonio Lopez-Escamez explain how progress is being made to investigate the contribution of genetic factors to tinnitus, including a subtype of ‘extreme’ tinnitus in Ménière’s disease. Genetics WG4 is working towards determining the genetic basis...
Outcome measurements WG5. Developing a core outcome set of measures for tinnitus
Alain Londero presents a large-scale collaboration that invites clinicians and patients to develop a minimum standard for assessing the efficacy of tinnitus treatments. This will become an international recommendation for all clinical trials of tinnitus. WG5 is working towards a...
Conspiring together: tinnitus and hearing loss
In this special feature, Nic Wray of the British Tinnitus Association and Zheng Yen Ng of The Ear Foundation present the results of their report into managing tinnitus for people with hearing loss. In September 2015, the British Tinnitus Association...
Hearing in middle-age: hearing impairment, tinnitus and hearing aid use in UK adults
Hearing loss has a well-documented adverse impact on emotional, social and physical well-being. In this article, Dr Piers Dawes from the University of Manchester gives an insight into his team’s recent work analysing the very large UK Biobank data set,...
Tinnitus in middle-age: prevalence and incidence
Population-based studies of tinnitus provide crucial underpinning evidence which highlights the need for further research on the effective diagnosis and clinical management of this heterogenous condition. Furthermore, such studies provide evidence of the burden of this condition both on the...
Lyric 24/7 hearing: could it help those with tinnitus?
About Lyric Hearing Since its launch in 2008, Lyric represents the first and only device of its kind establishing a new category of hearing solution: 24/7 extended wear. Lyric is placed several millimetres within the ear canal, near the tympanic...
