New 'MindEar' App Can Reduce Debilitating Impact of Tinnitus, Say Researchers 50
Researchers have designed an app to reduce the impact of tinnitus, an often debilitating condition that manifests via a ringing sound or perpetual buzzing. The Guardian reports: While there is no cure, there are a number of ways of managing the condition, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This helps people to reduce their emotional connection to the sound, allowing the brain to learn to tune it out. However, CBT can be expensive and difficult for people to access. Researchers have created an app, called MindEar, that provides CBT through a chatbot with other approaches such as sound therapy. "What we want to do is empower people to regain control," said Dr Fabrice Bardy, the first author of the study from the University of Auckland -- who has tinnitus.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Audiology and Otology, Bardy and colleagues report how 28 people completed the study, 14 of whom were asked to use the app's virtual coach for 10 minutes a day for eight weeks. The other 14 participants were given similar instructions with four half-hour video calls with a clinical psychologist. The participants completed online questionnaires before the study and after the eight-week period. The results reveal six participants given the app alone, and nine who were also given video calls, showed a clinically significant decrease in the distress caused by tinnitus, with the extent of the benefit similar for both groups. After a further eight weeks, a total of nine participants in both groups reported such improvements.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Audiology and Otology, Bardy and colleagues report how 28 people completed the study, 14 of whom were asked to use the app's virtual coach for 10 minutes a day for eight weeks. The other 14 participants were given similar instructions with four half-hour video calls with a clinical psychologist. The participants completed online questionnaires before the study and after the eight-week period. The results reveal six participants given the app alone, and nine who were also given video calls, showed a clinically significant decrease in the distress caused by tinnitus, with the extent of the benefit similar for both groups. After a further eight weeks, a total of nine participants in both groups reported such improvements.
My Tinnitus (Score:5, Informative)
I’ve had tinnitus for 24years bilateral at 9kHz constant tone 24x7.
I can hold a hair dryer up to head and still hear it.
It’s similar to chronic pain and the body has a flight or fight reaction. CBT attempts to break the fight/flight relationship which usually takes many years.
Lots of snake oil treatments around.
https://generalfuzz.net/acrn/ [generalfuzz.net] Can give some temporary relief.
Tinnitustalk.com is also a good summary of treatments and research.
Re:My Tinnitus (Score:4, Interesting)
What we really need is a "moonshot" effort for stuff like this that affects a lot of people.
Tinnitus
CFS/Long COVID
Dementia
Chronic headaches
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I suffer from two of those four (for now, at least).
Chronic headaches, on and off, for over 20 years, fortunately a couple Nurofen pills (one at onset, one 12h later) help me function normally again.
Tinnitus, started suddenly around two weeks ago, manageable for now, started happening a few months after my hearing started to deteriorate a bit.
Mid-40s suck more than I was hoping...
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2 weeks is still a relatively short time, you can still hope that it will get better.
And while it is uncurable in general, it actually depends on the root cause. You should get medical advice.
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I sincerely hope things improve for you.
Re: My Tinnitus (Score:1)
Dementia is in most cases physical damage due to age, itâ(TM)s very hard to âoefixâ because people die as they get older.
CFS is a psychological condition that responds very well to CBT together with changes in environment and diet.
Tinnitus is also often caused by physical damage, short of surgery which is not guaranteed to bring any improvements you canâ(TM)t regrow an entire ear. In some cases this is psychologically induced in which case CBT can help, but for most people there is no cu
Amateur scientist (Score:2)
What we really need is a "moonshot" effort for stuff like this that affects a lot of people.
Tinnitus
CFS/Long COVID
Dementia
Chronic headaches
Hypothesis: chronic headaches are caused by something in your environment.
Experiment: selectively remove things from your environment and see if the headaches go away.
On the extreme end there's the elimination diet: reduce your food intake to nothing but things known to be safe, wait for 2 weeks, and see if the headaches go away.
On the easy end, check to see if the headaches go away when you're on vacation: at another place, eating different foods.
Check for allergens in your home. Install an allergen blocki
Further note (Score:2)
A further note on the previous post:
Try to become aware of the chemicals in your environment that might get into your body.
For example, the air freshener hanging in your car, the chlorine smell from the pool at the gym, the vinyl smell of the track around the tennis courts, the smell of nail polish, cologne, and anything else.
Look at the ingredients of the things you eat: canned spaghetti, canned fruit (sulfates), cola (salt, phosphorus), mocha latte (chocolate), and so on.
Look also into the proportion of c
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Do you have visual snow too?
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Had mine since I was a small child, 47 now. Multiple tones.
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Exactly the same as me. If I concentrate, I can sometimes hear three or more tones. Some come with random pauses as if there's a tiny cricket or cicada somewhere!
Fortunately, it has never bothered me.
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Same here, a couple of years older than you. It's never really bothered me except sometimes it made it hard to sleep at night (especially very quiet ones), but that's probably because it's been there for almost 50 years and my brain thinks it's totally normal.
Re: My Tinnitus (Score:3, Interesting)
Try the following: at a very quiet time, "think back hard" for a minute the same tone(s) you are hearing as if you would sing/whistle without actually doing so. 9kHz is high, so you may need to stepwise think one or more octaves (frequency doublings) up to get at the correct frequency. If it works the tinnitus will gradually fade while "thinking" and slowly come back to a lower level after. Repeat as required until all tones are completely gone.
If your tinnitus is noise instead of / in addition to tone(s) t
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I’ve had tinnitus for 24years bilateral at 9kHz constant tone 24x7. I can hold a hair dryer up to head and still hear it.
Me too but 10KHz + some pink noise. I can blank it out, until the subject comes up. The problem is that sounds need to be louder than the tinnitus noise floor to be comprehendible. This has meant having hearing aids to boost the sound level. There is a silver lining: I can go and work in the data centre without using uncomfortable earplugs, the Automatic Gain Control brings down the fan noise to a comfortable level!
Can't the press agree to be responsible? (Score:3)
ESPECIALLY with Psychology.
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I dunno. I notice that this is a study which doesn't include a control group. Everyone in the study had the app, with or without video appointments and in the end everyone had the same improvement. From that I know to avoid trusting this and that the psychologists didn't add anything measurable by this tiny study to long term outcomes. That sounds like a pretty useless study. Someone should be reporting most medical research for fraud.
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A study of 28 people doesn't seem especially expansive either. Still, if you pay enough, slashdot will promote it :-(
(maybe slashdot has a 'reverse science' price list - the flakier the science behind the slashvertisement, the higher the cost...?)
I KNEW it was aliens! (Score:2)
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Some of us actually want to hear about what is being worked on, not just what you can buy at Walgreens.
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Wanna buy a bridge?
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No. No one is buying a bridge. But if you happen to be proposing a new type of bridge that solves a unique solution then I'm all for reading about it.
Am I being facetious? No I'm not, here's a bridge that was publicised before it even finished production https://mx3d.com/industries/mx... [mx3d.com] it was quite interesting news to read about it even if it wasn't a reality and no one would be sure of the outcomes of the test.
Spending lots of money on promotion
Please share with us the financial statements of the company. You clearly already have them sin
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Clear your head mate, it's full of nonsense.
Snake Oil Is Harmful And Quacks Should Be Sued (Score:4, Interesting)
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Your 100/50-50/100 rule is WAY overkill.
A 50/50 treatment for tinnitus would already be so helpful.
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You realise success rate of most drugs is only around ~20%, but can be as low as 3% to be approved [acsh.org].
Most approvals are also based on highly erratic studies, sometimes outright fabricated, such as in the case of Vioxx [npr.org] and Ketek.
Shares contact info (Score:3, Interesting)
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Mine's mild (Score:3)
You know what 'cures' tinnnitus for me? Not thinking about it and letting my brain tune out the tone. If I hear or see the word, suddenly I'm aware of it again.
I understand a lot of people have it far worse, and I can't imagine never getting a break from the sound. It must be maddening.
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Mine's the opposite. It comes and goes, and I find that once it's here, if I concentrate on it and it fades back out within a few seconds. It's like someone is slowly turning up a dial until I stare at them angrily for a few seconds and then they turn it back down.
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Well great, saw your post and...
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
CBT Should Work (Score:2)
I have mild tinnitus. I never notice it during the day, unless I think about it, then I can hear it. If I get distracted again, it will go away.
If I am sitting in absolute silence, then it has more of a tendency to return.
The brain is a powerful thing.
FFS (Score:3)
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they're selling an app, not making science. the study is a joke.
tinnitus has no (known) cure, you gotta live with it, some people might find that harder than other. these guys are just preying on the subset of the former that is desperate enough. it's disgusting.
psychological "treatment" doesn't anything to tinnitus either, but it might manage the distress, sort like a support thing.
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So you're suggesting completely skipping two phases of studies of science and going straight to widespread testing? Your point is absurd. They aren't making a claim their app works in a statistically significant and clinical way to the FDA. They did a first pass with a small group. It produced some positive results. The *NEXT STEP* is to expand the study.
Real science starts somewhere, it doesn't magic into existence.
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Tinnitus (Score:2)
Anti-Aircraft and howitzer gun damage (Score:2)
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i got it (methinks) from cannon firing in military service too, it even got me an eardrum lesion. oh, and listening to my walkman full volume. kids those days ...
yes, when in silence it can get unbelievably loud. but i guess i'm lucky, i did have some panic attacks in my youth but i've gotten pretty much used to it, it's been with me for nearly 40 years now. best friends!
No cure. Period. (Score:2)
crazy (Score:1)
"we want to empower people to regain control" (Score:2)
(closes wallet)
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HAHA. }-:]
Their press release wank factor is greater than my ability to suspend disbelief and look at their fundamentals. They have none. They're making a huge promise to treat a medical condition by gaslighting, talking about their feeling with a chatbot, and listen to some ocean noises. This screams "placebo". Probably the only way to cure tinnitus with current technology is painstaking, invasive microneurootosurgery to kill individual nonfunctional nerves connected to damaged stereocilia. The long-term
Oddly Unbothered! (Score:2)
I earned my tinnitus. I lived in apartments and condos for the last 30 years (until recently - bought a house). I've been a guitarist for 40 years, and while taking classical lessons I simultaneously cut my teeth on 70s classics - Black Sabbath and the like. I bought my first distortion pedal - a Boss HM-2 - at the age of 13. With the indestructibility of youth, I recorded, mixed, and mastered my music in headphones. And I've paid the price. The tone is constant - primarily in the left ear. Has been there f
Listening to crickets helps me (Score:1)
I listen to a 10 minute youtube of crickets and it fixes my tinnitus long enough to get to sleep.
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I listen to Buddy Holly too.
Hasn't done anything new for a while though.
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Lol ... I see what you did there. No, not the musical group, "THE Crickets" ..., but actual 10 minute loop of cricket insects chirpy. It gives me at least 30 minutes of relief from tinnitus.
Sullbhit (Score:2)