Neuro-Music-Therapy for Patients With Chronic Tinnitus - a Controlled Clinical Trial

Neuro-Music-Therapy for Patients With Chronic Tinnitus - a Controlled Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: Tinnitus is a nonspecific symptom of hearing disorder characterized by the sensation of buzzing, ringing, clicking, pulsations, and other noises in the ear. Despite a variety of treatments, many patients with chronic tinnitus ask for more active ways in coping with their tinnitus. Gold standard treatment in chronic tinnitus is a comprehensive directive counseling explaining the underlying mechanisms leading to the tinnitus percept. Therefore a neuro-music therapeutic treatment based on a bio-psycho-social framework was developed and compared to a counselling-only control group.

INTERVENTION: two standardized protocols for tinnitus therapy were defined ("neuro-music therapy" vs. "counselling")

Inclusion Criteria:

• Clinical diagnosis of chronic tinnitus persisting for a minimum of 6 month
• Adults, aged 18 or over
• Patients are able to understand, read and speak German fluently
• Patients are able to give written informed consent
• tinnitus with determinable centre frequency

Exclusion Criteria:

• Tinnitus related to anatomic lesions of the ear, to retrocochlear lesions or to cochlear implantation
• Tinnitus is concomitant symptom of a known systemic disease (such as Menière's Disease, vestibular schwannoma, endolymphatic hydrops)
• Status following craniocerebral trauma, cervicogenic or stomatognathic tinnitus
• Tinnitus is neither noisiform nor tonal (cricking, clacking, rumbling) or has different sound components or is pulsatile, intermittent or non-persistent
• Severe hearing impairment (greater than 50 decibel hearing loss (dB HL) in the region of the centre tinnitus frequency)
• Severe hyperacusis
• One or two sided deafness
• Clinical diagnosis of severe mental disorder or psychiatric or neurological disease (psychosis, epilepsy, Parkinsons's disease, dementia, alcohol or drug abuse)
• History of severe ischemic disorder (previous stoke, previous heart attack, peripheral arterial occlusion disease)
• Inability to discontinue drugs known to be associated with tinnitus (high-dose aspirin, quinidine, aminoglycosides) or psychotropic medication prior to entry into the study
• Patients are not able to understand, read and speak German fluently
• Patients are not able to give written informed consent