title: A new method for measuring the psychoacoustical properties of tinnitus.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study investigates the usefulness and effectiveness of a new way of tinnitus screening and diagnosing. The authors believe that in order to arrive at relevant diagnostic information, select the tinnitus treatment and quantitatively substantiate its effects, the measurement of the Tinnitus psychoacoustic parameters should be made an inherent part of the Tinnitus therapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  For this purpose the multimedia-based sound synthesizer has been proposed for testing tinnitus and the results obtained this way are compared with the outcome of the audiometer-based Wilcoxon test. The method has been verified with 14 patients suffering from tinnitus.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The experiments reveal capabilities, limitations, advantages and disadvantages of both methods. The synthesizer enables the patient to estimate his/her tinnitus more than twice as fast as the audiometer and makes the information on the tinnitus character perception more accurate. The analysis of the Wilcoxon test results shows that there are statistically important differences between the two tests.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients using the synthesizer operate the software application themselves and thus get more involved in testing. Moreover, they do not concentrate on describing verbally their tinnitus, which could be difficult for some of them. As a result, the test outcome is closer to the perceived tinnitus. However, the more complex the description of the perceived tinnitus, the harder it is to determine the sound parameters of the patient's perception. It also takes more time regardless of the method.
  The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1954066324109436.
authors.affiliation: Audio Acoustics Laboratory, Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk, Poland. bokostek@audioacoustics.org.
authors.forename: Bozena
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kostek
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Poremski
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D012984:Software; D013997:Time Factors; D014012:Tinnitus / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult