Development of a tinnitus sound generator that matches the sound of tinnitus patient

Abstract

Background: Tinnitus is the perception of sound heard by a person in the absence of an external stimulus. About 10-14.5% of the world's population experience tinnitus, with the most common age group being 40-60 years. As many as 10-12 million people in the United States suffer from severe tinnitus and feel disturbed enough to seek treatment. The management of tinnitus is still a challenge for researchers. Existing therapies include counseling, cognitive therapy, hearing aids, and tinnitus retraining, but until now, there has been no significant therapy. The last therapy that is available is to make artificial sounds that imitate the sound of tinnitus so that it can mask the actual tinnitus sound. In addition, therapy using music is expected to reduce the stress level of tinnitus patients. Methods: This research is action research, a follow-up study from previous research, with consecutive sampling and in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. After getting the frequency and amplitude of tinnitus, a sound stimulus is made in the form of combining tone variations and sound generators obtained from audiometric masking. Tone variations are made using a basic tone that matches the patient's tinnitus frequency. After that, the patient will assess the results of the merger. Results: The results showed the frequency and amplitude of tinnitus, suitability with masking, type of tinnitus, degree of deafness, and all participants were comfortable when listening to sound therapy from a sound generator. Discussion: The patient will use a tinnitus sound generator for 2 hours for 2 days, so the amplitude is safely limited to less than 91 dB. In this study, we set the tinnitus sound as closely as possible with the frequency, amplitude, tinnitus pulsating or not, appropriate music and paying attention to the hearing threshold.