Researchers have developed an application to reduce the discomfort caused by tinnitus in just a few weeks.
- More than 250 million people around the world, including more than 15 million French people, suffer from tinnitus, for which there is still no medical treatment to get rid of it permanently.
- Researchers have designed a smartphone application, called MindEar and available free of charge, which would reduce the discomfort caused by tinnitus in just a few weeks.
- MindEar uses a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness and relaxation exercises, and sound therapy to train the brain to pay less attention to tinnitus.
Buzzing, blowing, squeaking… Here are examples of sounds that people suffering from tinnitus – estimated at more than 250 million worldwide and some 15 million in France – are likely to hear. Worrying when they persist over time, these hearing problems are all the more problematic as there is no medical treatment to get rid of them permanently.
A new smartphone application, called MindEar and available free of charge, nevertheless raises hope for patients: it would reduce the discomfort caused by tinnitus in just a few weeks, according to a study published in the journal Frontiers in Audiology and Otology.
Tinnitus as a brain stress response
As we grow, our brains learn to filter out environmental noises, like a fan or a sleeping partner. Most alarms bypass this filter and trigger a feeling of alert, to wake us up from our night for example. However, tinnitus occurs when a person hears a sound in their head even though there is no external sound source, and their brain reacts with a similar stress response.
“The brain focuses on the sound insistently, thus training our mind to pay even more attention to it, even if there is no risk, explain in a communicated the Australian, New Zealand, French and Belgian researchers behind the application. The more we practice actively paying less attention to tinnitus, the easier it becomes to go out of tune.”
Less tinnitus after a few weeks of training
It is with this logic that the team of scientists designed MindEar. “The app uses a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness and relaxation exercises, and sound therapy to train your brain’s response, so it can suppress stress responses and thus focus less on tinnitus, explains Professor Suzanne Purdy, who participated in the research. The sound you hear eventually fades into the background and becomes much less annoying.”
Proof of this is that MindEar was clinically tested on 30 volunteer patients suffering from tinnitus, including “nearly two thirds experienced significant improvement after 16 weeks” training on smartphone, and “after only 8 weeks” when they additionally had access to an online psychologist. “One of the most common misconceptions about tinnitus is that there is nothing you can do about it, that you just have to live with it. This is simply not true.”conclude the authors of the study.
