title: Auditory discrimination therapy (ADT) for tinnitus management.
abstract: Auditory discrimination training (ADT) designs a procedure to increase cortical areas responding to trained frequencies (damaged cochlear areas with cortical misrepresentation) and to shrink the neighboring over-represented ones (tinnitus pitch). In a prospective descriptive study of 27 patients with high frequency tinnitus, the severity of the tinnitus was measured using a visual analog scale (VAS) and the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI). Patients performed a 10-min auditory discrimination task twice a day during one month. Discontinuous 4 kHz pure tones were mixed randomly with short broadband noise sounds through an MP3 system. After the treatment mean VAS scores were reduced from 5.2 to 4.5 (p=0.000) and the THI decreased from 26.2% to 21.3% (p=0.000). Forty percent of the patients had improvement in tinnitus perception (RESP). Comparing the ADT group with a control group showed statistically significant improvement of their tinnitus as assessed by RESP, VAS, and THI.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Otorrinolaringología, Fundación Hospital Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain. cherraizp@seorl.net
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Herraiz
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Diges
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cobo
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D014012:Tinnitus / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome