The short version
- The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation has updated its 2014 tinnitus guideline for adults.
- It supports hearing tests, counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, hearing aids where there is hearing loss, and sound enrichment.
- It advises against routine medication, dietary supplements and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.
The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation has published an update to its 2014 clinical practice guideline on tinnitus, in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. It covers adults with primary tinnitus and makes 16 action statements. The panel, chaired by Meredith E. Adams, included audiologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and patient advocates alongside surgeons.
On the side of doing something: a full hearing evaluation for every patient, education and counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, hearing aids for people who also have hearing loss, sound enrichment, cochlear implant evaluation for suitable candidates, and bimodal neuromodulation, a term the releases do not define. On the side of not: routine medication, dietary supplements, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, and routine imaging or lab tests without a specific reason. New since 2014 is an instruction to ask patients directly about emotional distress and self-harm. The foundation notes that up to a third of people with tinnitus have clinically significant depressive symptoms.
“Tinnitus is often described as ringing in the ears, but for many people it’s much more than a sound,” Adams said in the release. The full text was not open to us, so we cannot report how strongly each statement is graded. For the trial behind the sound-enrichment advice, see our report on a sound generator that beat placebo.
