Do Hearing Aids Help Tinnitus?

Individuals affected by tinnitus may find relief with the use of a hearing aid. Often tinnitus is accompanied by hearing loss and having your hearing assessed will help identify this. For those who do not have hearing loss, hearing aids or maskers may be an effective solution for tinnitus management.

Hearing aids, or tinnitus maskers, manage symptoms of tinnitus by using sounds or noise to “mask” the tinnitus. This helps you to focus on other, more pleasant sounds instead. This could be done using a variety of maskers such as white or other noise, fractal tones, music, or other background noise.

Many hearing aids can be programmed to mask or drown out the sounds of tinnitus. These types of hearing aids work in two ways to help: 

• Compensate for any hearing loss so that external sounds are heard better
• Provide a tinnitus program in your hearing aid settings that helps mask the tinnitus
  
  

Often wearing hearing aids can help with tinnitus. Hearing loss typically occurs slowly over time, making it difficult to recognize the sounds you don’t hear. Hearing aids work to increase those sounds back to a normal range which often helps drown out tinnitus. 

Many hearing aids also have features that may help, such as tinnitus masking features. These include white noise or other sounds which may reduce the buzzing, ringing, humming, or other sounds of tinnitus.

Static Noise and Ocean Wave Therapy are two features that work in a similar way. They cover up the sounds of tinnitus with individually tuned therapy signals. These signals divert attention away from the tinnitus and reduce the severity of symptoms you hear. 

This static noise therapy offers five different types of signals, while the ocean wave therapy offers four. Your hearing healthcare professional can help you choose the most comfortable solution for you.

Notch Therapy
Signia hearing aids are the only devices with the built-in tinnitus Notch Therapy. Notch Therapy treats your tinnitus silently unlike the static noise and ocean therapy mentioned above. This means that all you have to do is wear your hearing aids and the therapy could reduce the annoyance of your tinnitus in just weeks or months.

Widex hearing aids are the only devices to use Widex Zen Therapy. It is an integrated program with the hearing aids that helps treat tinnitus distress. There are three elements of the program: auditory aspects, attention, and emotion. 

Widex hearing aids have a variety of fractal, non-repeating, tonal stimulation that you can choose from. Zen Therapy is proven to be effective in helping users with relaxation, concentration and managing tinnitus.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for tinnitus. For some people, hearing aids can greatly help with tinnitus though there are other strategies for dealing with tinnitus. Some other treatment options include:

• Tinnitus masking devices and white noise machines

• Tinnitus therapy apps

• Counselling and support groups

• Tinnitus retraining therapy