“It’s difficult to describe but it just has such an impact on every facet of your life. You know, your sleeping habits, your mental health, your relationships with other people.”
Emily Lane was born with a hearing disability and has had tinnitus on and off all her life. But in 2006 it turned up permanently and it was loud. “It’s like a chorus of cicadas living permanently on full blast inside my head.”
Professor Grant Searchfield is head of Audiology at the University of Auckland Photo: University of Auckland
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Many of us will experience a form of tinnitus at some stage in our lives, what Professor Grant Searchfield terms ‘nightclub tinnitus’. After a loud night out, we might wake in the morning with a ringing or buzzing in our ears, but it's likely to fade after a few hours.
Head of Audiology at the University of Auckland, Grant became interested in tinnitus when, as a practising audiologist, he didn’t have any answers for patients who came to him for help.
Since then, he has been investigating how to help chronic tinnitus sufferers – people who have experienced this phantom sound for more than six months, and whose lives are significantly impacted by it. And one thing has become very clear - this is a condition that varies widely from person to person, therefore the treatment must also vary.
This idea underpins the design of the digital therapeutic the team have developed to help tinnitus sufferers. Users get an app on their phone that allows them to select what they need– whether it’s nature soundscapes to help the person relax, complex sounds to help them get relief from their tinnitus, or active sound-based games to help retrain the brain.
Listen to the episode to learn more about the digital therapy, the initial trial, and the team’s plans for what comes next.
To learn more:
- Listen to the full episode on Our Changing World
- You can read the research article reporting the results of the trial of the therapeutic in the Frontiers of Neurology Journal.
