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Tinnitus Awareness

by Rathi Manohar on Feb 7 2011 3:17 PM

 Tinnitus Awareness
The  Tinnitus Awareness Week, 4th  to the 11th of February is being observed by the British Tinnitus Association (BTA) to make people more aware of this worrying condition.
Tinnitus is a noise of ringing or buzzing which does not come from outside, but which is produced in the head of the person. Although the causes have not been established, it is believed that old age could be a primary factor. Hearing loss and physical damage to the ear could cause tinnitus. Other important reasons are stress and working with constant loud noise as drummers and DJs do.

But as David Stockdale, the Chief Executive Officer of the BTA, states, “It’s often more useful not to focus on trying to understand the cause, but to look at trying to manage it, usually with medical help. A lot of managing tinnitus is getting to the stage where you’re able to forget about it, where the brain understands it’s not an important auditory signal and can ignore it.”

Dr Roland Schaette  at the University College London (UCL) Ear Institute comments that because of the knowledge that the condition is a process that goes on in the brain, while manifesting itself in the ear, progress has been made in understanding tinnitus.  Hence, he expects a precise treatment strategy in the next ten years.

Certain practical preventive measures to be taken are:  Avoiding very loud noise;   reducing the time of exposure to loud noise by taking breaks; drinking plenty of fluids so that the inner ear circulation of blood and fluids does not decrease.

If the problem already exists, various treatment strategies such as sound therapy, use of a hearing aid, counseling sessions and relaxation techniques would help to manage the condition.



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Source-Medindia


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