Attention Trainer

Tinnitus tends to grab attention, and attention tends to make it louder and harder to ignore. A handful of small studies have tried training attention directly:

• Fifteen days of 30-minute sessions identifying and locating sounds reduced how much tinnitus could mask other sounds (Searchfield and colleagues, 2007).
• In a controlled trial, 20 days of a 30-minute auditory attention game reduced tinnitus scores more than playing Tetris did (Wise and colleagues, 2016).
• Twenty daily sessions of attention training that combined sound, sight and touch produced small reductions in tinnitus (Spiegel and colleagues, 2015).

The studies were small, and broader brain-training and pitch-training programs did no better than their comparison groups. The common thread in the positive results is active listening that asks for a response, done daily for three to four weeks. That is what this program does. Treat it as practice for a skill, not a cure, and use it alongside your audiologist’s care.

1. Searchfield GD et al. Object identification and attention training for treating tinnitus. Prog Brain Res 2007;166:441–60. doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(07)66043-9
2. Wise K et al. Randomized controlled trial of a perceptual training game for tinnitus therapy. Games Health J 2016;5(2):141–9. doi:10.1089/g4h.2015.0068
3. Spiegel DP et al. Multisensory attention training for treatment of tinnitus. Sci Rep 2015;5:10802. doi:10.1038/srep10802
4. Kallogjeri D et al. Cognitive training for adults with bothersome tinnitus: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2017;143(5):443–51. doi:10.1001/jamaoto.2016.3779
5. Hoare DJ et al. Gameplay as a source of intrinsic motivation in a randomized controlled trial of auditory training for tinnitus. PLoS ONE 2014;9(9):e107430. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107430