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Abstract
Objective
Sound therapy (ST) and stress reduction regimens have been successfully used to manage tinnitus. Virtual reality (VR) has been used to manage chronic conditions like intractable pain. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the use of VR in conjunction with ST revealed additional improvements in tinnitus attributes as compared to ST alone.
Design
This study was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with a cross-over design. All participants received two interventions – ST alone (control) and ST with VR stimuli (experimental). ST consisted of fractal tones while VR stimuli comprised of nature videos presented via VR goggles. A multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model was used to estimate the intervention effect.
Study sample
Twenty adults with subjective, continuous, chronic tinnitus participated in the study.
Results
After adjusting for period and baseline tinnitus loudness, significant improvements were observed in tinnitus loudness and Tinnitus Functional Index scores. Although not statistically significant, mean minimum masking levels were lower after the experimental intervention.
Conclusions
Study participants benefitted from the use of VR in conjunction with ST in a laboratory setting. Additional effectiveness trials and blinded RCTs will be needed before validating the use of VR for tinnitus management in clinical settings.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Raissa El-Houayek for assisting with data collection. The study was partially funded by the Faculty Research Development Grant (School of Health Professions and Human Services, Hofstra University) awarded to Aniruddha K. Deshpande (PI).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).