NCT03716544

Efficacy of Amplification With Hearing Aids for Tinnitus Relief

Efficacy of Amplification With Hearing Aids for Tinnitus Relief: a Randomized Controlled Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 64 (actual)
• Sponsor: Education University of Hong Kong · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study evaluates the treatment efficacy of tinnitus in people with mild hearing loss. One-third of participants will use hearing aid, one-third of participants will use customized music, while the other one-third participants will receive no treatment (waiting list control).

Detailed description

Acoustic stimulation could induce plastic changes in the auditory cortex, and tinnitus mechanisms have been viewed as a negative consequence of neural plasticity in the central nervous system after peripheral aggression. Cortical changes (neural activity in the deafferented cortical area was reduced but the adjacent frequencies of the hearing loss region activated more extensive cortical areas) occur after sensorineural hearing loss, while exposure to an acoustically enriched environment or using hearing aids may minimize or reverse the plastic tonotopic map changes in the auditory cortex. The use of hearing aids in tinnitus management for people with significant hearing loss will always be associated with an improvement in hearing handicap and quality of life, and that complicates the interpretation of how much hearing aids specifically affect tinnitus. Thus studies on tinnitus patients with mild hearing loss could be illuminating, and this population will be targeted in the present study.

Conditions

• Tinnitus, Subjective
• Hearing Impairment

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Amplification with hearing aid	Use of hearing aids
DEVICE	Customized music	Customized music delivered via an iPod

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-11-01
• Primary completion: 2023-12-31
• Completion: 2023-12-31
• First posted: 2018-10-23
• Last updated: 2024-03-04

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Hong Kong