Clinical evidence indicates that hearing aids provide several benefits to people with tinnitus. By improving the quality of external sound, hearing aids make the wearer less focused on internal sounds caused by tinnitus. Just putting on hearing aids often helps reduce tinnitus symptoms, says Ramachandran. But these devices also have features that can help.
Hearing aids can increase the volume of external noise to the point of covering (masking) the sound of tinnitus. This makes it more difficult to consciously perceive tinnitus and helps the brain to focus on external environmental noises. The masking effect of hearing aids is particularly strong for patients who have hearing loss in the same frequency range as tinnitus. A hearing aid can help relieve tinnitus if you have hearing loss.
An audiologist can help you find and use the hearing aid that best fits your needs. Signia hearing aids are the only ones with built-in Notch tinnitus therapy. This is a method that has proven to be especially effective for people who experience tonal tinnitus, the most common type of tinnitus. Hearing aids have been reported to relieve tinnitus in up to 60% of participants, study finds.
For 22% of those people, the relief was significant. However, hearing aids are not specifically designed to treat tinnitus. The benefits seem to come from the partnership. So, if you have tinnitus along with hearing loss, then that's when your hearing aids will most effectively treat the symptoms of tinnitus.
These therapies provide an optimal individual solution for exceptional sound quality and listening experience. Like most tinnitus treatments, hearing aids may work best when combined with a structured tinnitus education program and some form of patient counseling. The best hearing aids for tinnitus help increase external sound above the perceived volume of tinnitus. A health professional will place the hearing aid, and once it is in the ear, the person will not need to remove or turn it off for months at a time.
That said, animal research shows that almost anything that consistently causes hearing loss will also cause tinnitus, he explains. These work on the same principle as hearing aids, they increase the stimulation of external sound, which helps to distract the brain from the perceived sounds of tinnitus. With hearing loss, you'll experience a lack of brain input, explains audiologist Julie Prutsman, founder of the Sound Relief Hearing Center and member of the board of directors of the American Tinnitus Association. To some extent, this is because they incorporate the latest technologies and algorithms of hearing assistance.
The company says that a person should contact their hearing care professional for more information and to set up this feature. In addition to TSG and masking functions, many hearing aids allow you to easily connect to a phone, so you can stream sounds from a relaxation app or one that offers a range of white noises. It's also important to note that while the two are only sometimes used together, sound therapy and hearing aids are not mutually exclusive. If you're not sure which tinnitus treatment approach is right for you, make an appointment with the experts at Sound Relief Hearing Center.
When you can hear everything going on around you, you can often relieve the inner sound of tinnitus. Tinnitus can manifest as a buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, or similar noise that you hear, even if there is no external source for the sound. And if they test their hearing, they will usually have at least some level of hearing loss and they may not have noticed it, says Ramachandran. .