Methods, systems, and devices for treating tinnitus with VNS pairing
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Date
2014-03-04
Authors
Kilgard, Michael P.
Engineer, Navzer Dara
Pierce, David Michael
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Abstract
A method of treating tinnitus comprising measuring a patient's hearing, determining the patient's hearing loss and the patient's tinnitus frequency using the measurements of the patient's hearing, programming a clinical controller with the measurements of the patient's hearing, selecting a plurality of therapeutic tones, where the therapeutic tones are selected to be at least a half-octave above or below of the patient's tinnitus frequency, setting an appropriate volume for each of the plurality of tones, repetitively playing each of the plurality of therapeutic tones, and pairing a vagus nerve stimulation pulse train with each playing of a therapeutic tone, thereby reducing the patient's perception of tinnitus.