Re: Treating subjective tinnitus with cortical remapping?

[Liz Elliott <liz.elliott@xxxxxx>]

Margaret,

I believe what you describe is currently achieved - in some cases at
least - by providing an enriched auditory environment via an
appropriately programmed digital hearing aid.

Cochlear damage implies hearing loss, so you would need to identify and
compensate for this before any type of pc or iphone app would be of
benefit (Although I suppose you could compensate for the hearing loss
within the app, but that would require the use of calibrated equipment,
as would locating the tinnitus frequency if you took a frequency
matching approach).

There are already some pc-based auditory training packages available
(see LACE, eArena, etc), that are designed to help new hearing aid users
'retrain' their auditory brain. Essentially they just provide the user
with some structured listening practice. I'm not sure of their efficacy.

As for the expert you mention, some might argue that "the interface of
hearing and psychology, with computer-aided-therapy" is a fair
description of modern audiology ;) but more specifically someone trained
in tinnitus therapy or hearing therapy might carry out that sort of
work.

Kind regards

Liz Elliott