Question
I am interested in offering tinnitus management services to my patients. Where can professionals get training on tinnitus in general and what kinds of research studies were done on the ReSound Live TS product?
Answer
For training, a good place to start is the American Tinnitus Association (www.ata.org/). The University of Iowa's tinnitus conference that happens every September is a great resource, as are TRT Seminars from the Drs. Jastreboff. Plural Publishing has just launched the Progressive Tinnitus Management series of books, and there's a CD that goes along with it as well. There are also general courses on tinnitus on AudiologyOnline. There really is a lot of good literature and resources out there on tinnitus for professionals if you look for them.
Regarding ReSound Live TS™, we conducted two separate external trials that involved approximately 25 to 30 subjects, and these were independent global sites. I would call them expert tinnitus clinics, with experienced professionals who really understand tinnitus and have been working with it for a number of years.
The trials lasted over six months and included five different clinic visits. Essentially we wanted to look at pre and post Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) scores, Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire scores (TRQ), and we also looked at setting preferences. We wanted to get an idea of how people liked these instruments to be set up, and did they get benefit over the six-month time period. We saw in both studies a significant improvement in both THI and TRQ scores after the six months. We also got great information as to preferences for some of the features that I just mentioned.
For more information about ReSound, www.gnresound.com/ visit or the ReSound web channel on AudiologyOnline.
Michael Piskosz, M.S., CCC-A is an Audiologist at GN Resound, where he is responsible for the development of training and marketing materials based on research and development activities. He has also developed a focus on tinnitus. He earned his M.S. from Syracuse University and is board certified in Audiology.
