title: Prescription of hearing-aid output for tinnitus relief.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Tinnitus is a perceived sound that cannot be attributed to an external source. This study attempts to identify a prescription of amplification that is optimized as a first-fit setting for tinnitus relief.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants compared the effect of high frequency amplification on their tinnitus. Stimuli were 13 speech files with different amounts of high frequency amplification (three cut-off frequencies and four gain settings) to simulate the effects of a change in DSL(I/O) v5.0 prescription in the high frequencies.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-five participants with chronic tinnitus participated in the study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A 6-dB reduction to prescribed gain at 2 kHz emerged as the most preferred output (26.47% participants) to interfere with participants' tinnitus. Overall, 70.58% of the participants' preferred a 3 to 6 dB reduction in output while 29.42% preferred a similar increase across all cut-off frequencies. A trend was observed in which the higher the tinnitus pitch the more similar the preferred output to DSL(I/O) v5.0.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  DSL(I/O) v5.0 appears to be a good starting point for prescription of hearing-aid output for tinnitus management. Long-term benefits of different prescriptions for tinnitus still need to be ascertained.
authors.affiliation: Section of Audiology, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Giriraj Singh
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Shekhawat
authors.forename: Grant D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Searchfield
authors.forename: Kei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Cathy M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Stinear
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001299:Audiometry; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013067:Speech Perception; D014012:Tinnitus / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D016896:Treatment Outcome