Tinnitus is defined as a phantom sensation of sound perceived by an individual in the absence of any external sound source (1). Dobie reported chronic tinnitus to be prevalent more among seniors (12% after age 60) than in young adults (5% in the 20-30 age groups) but also agreed that it can take place at any age (2). Tinnitus sensation in 2-3% of the general population has been found to affect the quality of life, involving sleep disorder, defect at work and psychiatric distress. Chronic tinnitus has been reported to be associated with the noise-induced hearing loss in young population due to increasing industrial and social noise (3) or hearing loss accompanying the aging process (4). Tinnitus has been found to impact many different domains of functioning catering to a need of a multidisciplinary approach for its management in order to adequately help the patients (5).
Tinnitus treatments
Many approaches for tinnitus management
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Sound therapy
Sound therapy utilizes a variety of stimuli such as music, white noise, narrow band noise and environmental sounds to simplify the habituation process to tinnitus. The therapeutic sounds can be presented to the users' ears via ear-level devices or can be downloaded to their personal music players. For those individuals with the hearing loss associated with tinnitus, sound therapy techniques may employ hearing aids or custom-made music files based on the users' hearing thresholds (7). When combined with suitable rehabilitation and counseling sessions, sound therapy enables the tinnitus suffering individuals to perceive tinnitus in a more manageable level and enables them to reduce the negative impact of tinnitus in their daily life and activities (8, 9)
2. CBT
CBT for tinnitus includes, for example, psycho-education about tinnitus, applied relaxation, positive imagery, cognitive restructuring of negative beliefs about tinnitus, exposure to the sounds, behavioral activation, and mindfulness/attention exercises (10, 11).
3.