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