Tinnitus Retraining Therapy is a kind of a new habituation procedure designed to manage the tinnitus or ringing ears. In this relatively new research, it indicated 80 percent of success rate. This therapy is trying to prove that a person can ignore any sound just like he can ignore a sound of the refrigerator fan which he can hear of everyday. The course may take effect within the first 18 month of the therapy.
It uses counselling to make the patient understand of how combining tinnitus retraining and sound enrichment can put an end to negative reaction to tinnitus sound, then gradually end their perception of it. Usually, to provide a background noise level, a noise generator is used in Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. The treatment’s goal is to offer hope to tinnitus sufferers if they could in turn take the time and make an effort in learning and implementing it.
This therapy requires an effort of the person to achieve success in the course. Knowledge about tinnitus and the whole Tinnitus Retraining Therapy procedure process must be understood by the person. For the person who wishes to go under Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, it would be helpful for him to have a basic understanding of how auditory cortex perceive wound through the subconscious auditory neuronal networks.
To give as an idea of how Tinnitus Retraining Therapy works, consider this concept. If a person is living in a noisy area all his life, he would get used to the noise and won’t notice it unless someone would mention it. But for a person living in a peaceful place, and you have him transfer to a noisy place, he would be bothered and notices the sound automatically. In this example, it shows that to the person who is living in a noisy environment all his life, his brain gives no meaning to the sound other than a noise. And since the sound becomes meaningless to the brain, it “tunes out” the sound using a brain function called Auditory Habituation. This means that the brain no longer gives negative reaction to ear noise. This concept of the brain processing is the same as what has been used in Tinnitus Retraining Therapy.
So what Tinnitus Retraining Therapy does is that it retrains the brain in such a way that the brain won’t give a negative reaction to the noise or ringing ears or tinnitus, thus allowing auditory habituation. The therapy does this by having the person listen to a regular digitally created full audio spectrum while noise, MP3, or CD. The level of the ear noise must be the above the level of the sound. In that way, it makes the ear noise imperceptible, since the sound would cause the plasticity of the brain to increase. Therefore, it couldn’t make an emotional response, resulting in an auditory habituation.
The patient undergoing the treatment must be cooperative in the procedure. He must help himself in finishing the course. There are things that the patient must be prepared of before submitting to the procedure. Different brain functions must be understood. Patient must have faith in the procedure, as well as patience. These two can contribute to the result of getting into Tinnitus Retraining Therapy since it would take at least 18 months for the entire course. If patient does not have the patience, it might wear him off in the middle of the treatment. And a positive outlook will keep the patient aspire that his tinnitus problem can be overcome.
Want to find out more about tinnitus retraining therapy, then visit Barbara Thomson’s site on how to choose the best tinnitus retraining therapy for your needs.