Alango TinnMasker - tinnitus masker sound therapy application
What it is all about
This article is about TinnMasker, an experimental Windows PC application designed to test the efficiency of tinnitus masking sound therapy. We need a feedback from people suffering from tinnitus and from those professionals who are dealing with tinnitus sufferers daily.
About tinnitus and masking sound therapy
More than 10% of population suffer from tinnitus which is hearing annoying phantom sounds that are not real. Tinnitus originates somewhere in the auditory system and cannot be cancelled with any earplugs or active noise cancellation outside our head. It may also be exceedingly difficult to ignore it when it becomes strong. One potential remedy is to hear an external sound of similar perceptual qualities that is slightly stronger than internal sound so that the internal tinnitus sound is not heard or “masked”. Our brain knows how to ignore continuous noises or other external sounds so that after some prolonged exposure to the masking sound, it will ignore it together with the underlying tinnitus. Surprisingly, after completing the masking sound therapy, many people experience tinnitus inhibition that is significant or complete relief from tinnitus for some time. The tinnitus eventually comes back, but the procedure can be repeated.
The key to successful tinnitus sound therapy is to find the external sound of minimal volume that matches and masks the phantom sound generated by the brain. This procedure is generally done by a professional in a lengthy trial and error procedure. We think it can be done by the user him/herself via an intuitive smartphone application. TinnMasker is a prototype of such application interface that can run on Windows PC. We are looking for a feedback from users that will allow us to make it easier, more intuitive and covering more tinnitus cases. After that, we are planning to release and Android and iOS applications. Eventually, tinnitus masking sound therapy will be integrated into our line of Wear & Hear hearing enhancement devices.
Alango Wear & Hear and tinnitus sound therapy
Hearing loss is often associated with tinnitus. It is quite natural then that tinnitus masking sound therapy is administered with the same device that is used for hearing amplification. Our company, Alango Technologies Ltd, a market leader in digital voice/audio enhancement technologies, is dedicated to contributing to a solution for the worldwide wide problem of hearing loss. Based on our 20 years’ experience in voice communication, our Wear & Hear division has developed a line of Augmented Hearing Headsets that combine functionality of digital hearing aids with advanced Bluetooth stereo headsets www.wearandhear.com. We are planning to include tinnitus masking sound therapy option into one of our next firmware updates. Since our BeHear line of devices allow Over The Air (OTA) firmware upgrades, this feature will also become available for free for people who bought their devices prior to that. We need your feedback to perfect our approach to finding the best tinnitus masker sound. We are interested in both users’ experience and professional guidelines to make it better.
TinnMasker application
TinnMasker is a free Windows PC application developed to validate the concept of efficient self-administered tinnitus masking sound therapy. The application and the User Guide may be downloaded from this Alango Wear & Hear tinnitus page
The TinnMasker tinnitus masking sound therapy application may provide relief for your tinnitus by allowing you to match an external sound to your unique internal sound (“tinnitus”), using three parameters:
- Frequency/Pitch defines the center frequency of tinnitus masker sound
- Sharpness/Clarity defines the point between noise like or pure tone like masker sound
- Volume that is relative to the system volume
Connect your computer to a speaker, wired headphones, or a Bluetooth headset (if you want wireless mobility near your computer), try TinnMasker and go directly to the feedback form by pressing "Leave Feedback" button at the bottom. We'll be happy to make it better. Your feedback will help us to integrate tinnitus sound relief therapy into our line of Augmented Hearing Headsets.
TinnMasker instruction video
Watch this instruction video to get the first impression before downloading the application. I hope you will like it and proceed to download TinnMasker from this Alango Wear & Hear tinnitus page. If not, let us us know what was wrong.
Your feedback
If you experience tinnitus, we need your after testing this approach to tinnitus masking. Did you help? Did you find the procedure of finding the best masking sound easy and intuitive? How long did you try to use the application? What was your daily "doze"? Did you experience tinnitus exhibition and for how long?
If you are a professional helping tinnitus sufferers, we need your advice to recommend tinnitus sufferers to define the best tinnitus masking sound therapy procedure. We will be happy to make your experience available to people that are not in direct contact with you and, of course, we will note that this therapy was recommended by YOU.
