4 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The purpose of this mixed methods correlational study is to investigate the effects of meditation on the level of bother in tinnitus patients in the United States. The researchers seek to understand the changes in bother as compared to the amount of time spent meditating. Data is obtained through the Insight Timer mediation application. Outcome measures will include several validated and reliable measures.
Tinnitus, commonly referred to as "ringing in the ears", affects 50 million people in the United States and is recognized as a major public health concern. Tinnitus is the most frequent cause of service-connected disability claims among war veterans. Tinnitus remains a subjectively diagnosed entity. There is no standardized objective method of diagnosing tinnitus or describing the functional impact of the condition. Currently, physicians have to rely on patient-based self reports. Without an objective method of diagnosing tinnitus and describing the functional implications, adequate treatment delivery is also hampered since there is no way to objectively stratify patients into severity groups and assess response to treatment. Because tinnitus is known to negatively affect cognition through the ventral attention networks and the prefrontal cortex, measuring cognitive processing speed is a possible way to objectively measure tinnitus. This study builds on previous work the investigators have done that utilized a quick, easily accessible measure of auditory processing speed. That earlier study showed a correlation between that measure and self reported measures of tinnitus severity, and this study attempts determine a more precise estimate of that correlation. It also better validates those results by including a traditional neurocognitive measuring cognitive speed and by controlling for the presence of depression and somatoform disorders.
The overall purpose of this research is to assess whether both the "60 second Brain Game" and the "Brain Speed Test" computer-based programs can be used as assessment tools for objectively defining the severity of the functional impact of tinnitus.
The objective of this study is to examine the efficacy of tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) as a treatment of chronic tinnitus in people with limited hearing loss. The study design is prospective, randomized, double-blind, with repeated measures. The null hypothesis states there will be no difference in subjective measures of tinnitus severity between subjects treated with standard TRT and subjects treated with sham TRT.