Rajendra Kumar Porika¹* and Balakrishnan Doraisami²

¹Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist, Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities (Divyangjan), Regional Centre, Secunderabad, Telangana State, India
²Professor of ENT and Head of the Department of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamilnadu, India

*Corresponding Author: Rajendra Kumar Porika, Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist, Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities (Divyangjan), Regional Centre, Secunderabad, Telangana State, India.

Received: February 02, 2022; Published: June 14, 2022

Abstract

The perception of sound in the ears in the absence of external sound is defined as tinnitus. It is frequently associated with sensory neural hearing loss. Hearing aids are known to be one of the best management options. The aim and objective of the study is to assess the relative efficacy of three types of digital programmable hearing aids in the management of tinnitus and its concomitant variables such as age, gender, etiology, duration, nature, laterality, laterality and severity of tinnitus and also duration of hearing loss in individuals with hearing loss using Tinnitus Handicap Inventory - Telugu version (THIT) questionnaire.

A total of 108 participants with an age range of 18 - 81 years with had a complaint of tinnitus and hearing loss were considered for the study. The participants were allocated in three hearing aid groups of 36 subjects each i.e. Digital with Basic programming (D-Basic), Digital with Tinnitus Specific programming (DTS) and Digital with Inbuilt Masking facility (DIM). The purposive random sampling method was used for the study. The pre and post THIT scores were compared and analyzed using paired t-test analysis.

The results showed differences in THIT mean scores and improvement was seen in all hearing aid groups combined and individual groups with respect to the age, gender, duration of tinnitus, aetiology of tinnitus, nature of tinnitus, types of tinnitus, laterality of tinnitus, severity grade of tinnitus, severity of hearing loss in both right and left ear, and duration of hearing loss.

The study concluded that Hearing aids are effective in management of tinnitus, all the three types of digital programmable hearing aids provided appreciable mitigation of effects of tinnitus. Among all the groups, DIM group showed better improvement followed by DTS and D-Basic.

Keywords: Tinnitus; Ear; Sensori-neural Hearing Loss (SNHL)

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Citation

Citation: Rajendra Kumar Porika and Balakrishnan Doraisami. “The Hearing Aids in Overall Management of Tinnitus and its Concomitant Variables".Acta Scientific Otolaryngology 4.7 (2022): 26-36.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Rajendra Kumar Porika and Balakrishnan Doraisami. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.