BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders

Background: Since the first description of tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT), clinicians have modified and customised the method of TRT in order to suit their practice and their patients. A simplified form of TRT is used at Ealing Primary Care Trust Audiology Department. Simplified TRT is different from TRT in the type and (shorter) duration of the counseling but is similar to TRT in the application of sound therapy except for patients exhibiting tinnitus with no hearing loss and no decreased sound tolerance (wearable sound generators were not mandatory or recommended here, whereas they are for TRT). The main goal of this retrospective study was to assess the efficacy of simplified TRT. Methods: Data were collected from a series of 42 consecutive patients who underwent simplified TRT for a period of 3 to 23 months. Perceived tinnitus handicap was measured by the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and perceived tinnitus loudness, annoyance and the effect of tinnitus on life were assessed through the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Results: The mean THI and VAS scores were significantly decreased after 3 to 23 months of treatment. The mean decline of the THI score was 45 (SD = 22) and the difference between preand post-treatment scores was statistically significant. The mean decline of the VAS scores was 1.6 (SD = 2.1) for tinnitus loudness, 3.6 (SD = 2.6) for annoyance, and 3.9 (SD = 2.3) for effect on life. The differences between preand post-treatment VAS scores were statistically significant for tinnitus loudness, annoyance, and effect on life. The decline of THI scores was not significantly correlated with age and duration of tinnitus. Conclusion: The results suggest that benefit may be obtained from a substantially simplified form of TRT. Background Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is aimed at removing negative associations of the tinnitus signal to enable the natural habituation process to occur [1]. The goal is to achieve this through retraining counseling and sound therapy. Retraining counseling is a crucial part of TRT; it teaches patients the components of the neurophysiological model of tinnitus and encourages them to reclassify their tinnitus as a neutral signal. Sound therapy is assumed to facilitate tinnitus habituation by decreasing Published: 3 November 2008 BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders 2008, 8:7 doi:10.1186/1472-6815-8-7 Received: 14 February 2008 Accepted: 3 November 2008 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6815/8/7 © 2008 Aazh et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. BMC Ear, Nose and Throat Disorders 2008, 8:7 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6815/8/7