Evidence for Notched Sound Therapy: Does it Actually Lower Tinnitus Volume?

Here’s a summary of experimental research that has demonstrated a reduction in tinnitus volume with Notched Sound Therapy:

Year: 2009
Region: Italy
Windowed Sound Therapy and Personalized Tinnitus Treatment

43 people were recruited for an experiment to test the efficacy of Tailor-Made Notched White Noise, listening daily for 12 months duration. 4 of 20 patients receiving the treatment had their tinnitus tones eliminated entirely. The average reduction in tinnitus volume in the treatment group was approximately 12 dB, or a 75% volume reduction.

“Figure 3. Mean values of dBtfinal (1 SE), and PdBtfinal, of the three sound therapy groups. Note that the number of cases in which dBtfinal was less than 0 (i.e., tinnitus severity decreased) differed statistically from chance only in the WWN group (binomial test) [17]. For further details, see the Results section. (**p .01; WN broadband noise; WWN notched broadband noise; Wa water noise.)”

“Figure 4. Variation of tinnitus loudness over time in four patients (indicated with a different symbol) taken as an example. Three patients received a different type of sound therapy (i.e., WWN, Wa, or WN), whereas one patient initially receiving the Wa therapy shifted to the WWN therapy about 3 months (arrow) after the first visit. Decibel units on the y-axis are values of dBt computed using dBt measurements in subsequent control visits of the same subject (date on the x-axis). dBt values are expressed relative to the decibel measurement at the first visit. See Methods for further details. (WN broadband noise; WWN notched broadband noise; Wa water noise.)”

Year: 2010
Region: Germany
Customized notched music training reduces tinnitus loudness

People listened to 2 hours of Tailor-Made Notched Music daily for 12 months resulted in a 26.1% reduction in tinnitus loudness.

“Figure 1. Tinnitus perception change over the course of the training. The bars denote average changes in percent relative to baseline; the error bars
denote the standard errors of the means. Negative values reflect improvement, positive values reflect impairment. Subjective tinnitus loudness, subjective
tinnitus annoyance, and experienced handicapping by the tinnitus were measured with visual analogue scales. Groups (Target, Placebo and
Monitoring) are coded by grayscale (black, white and gray). Significant changes from baseline are marked with asterisks.”

Year: 2011
Region: Germany
Short and Intense Tailor-Made Notched Music Training against Tinnitus: The Tinnitus Frequency Matters

24 users were recruited with chronic tinnitus and less than 50 dB of hearing loss to listen to Tailor-Made Notched Music Therapy for 6 hours a day for 5 days. 3 hours after completing only five days of therapy, tinnitus loudness was decreased by approximately 20%, and 31 days later, remained reduced by about 10%. This effect was noted only for Notched Music applied to users with a tinnitus frequency under 8,000 hZ.

“Figure 1. Tinnitus loudness ratios.
Normalized tinnitus loudness changes relative to baseline at four time points after training completion for both patient groups. White bars represent the low tinnitus frequency (≤8 kHz) group, black bars represent the high tinnitus frequency (>8 kHz) group. Asterisks denote significant changes, the error bars denote standard errors of the mean. Positive values indicate aggravation, and negative values indicate alleviation.”

Year: 2016
Region: Germany
Clinical Trial on Tonal Tinnitus with Tailor-Made Notched Music Training

The original German team that pioneered Tailor-Made Notched Music Therapy enrolled 100 patients in a clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of this same treatment. After a three month duration, tinnitus loudness was found to be decreased in the treatment group. The reduction in loudness was observed to be small, but persisted one month after the cessation of therapy.

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