Notched music therapy could offer hope to millions of people around the world with subjective tinnitus. Unlike other types of sound therapy, notched music therapy is custom-designed for the person who is undergoing it. The flexibility and versatility of this music therapy is important because tinnitus is a complex inner ear disorder which varies greatly from person to person in terms of the cause and which treatments are most effective.
Subjective tinnitus is often times associated with hearing loss which is caused by damage to the inner ear, usually from excessive noise. This is why hearing loss is commonly associated with subjective tinnitus. Notched music therapy however may provide those with this particular problem a solution of sorts. This method of treating tinnitus was originally devised by a few researchers at Muenster University Hospital and involves patients choosing their favorite music but with a slight twist.
The music which the patient is hearing gets “notched”, meaning that a one-octave frequency band was completely filtered out. Those who have undergone notched music therapy went through this routine for a total of 12 hours a week. So far after a year of studying this type of music therapy, the data that has been gathered is quite promising for tinnitus sufferers.
Many of the people who have undergone notched music therapy have claimed that the ringing was not as loud as it usually was for them. This data was compared against that which was collected from those who listened to an average of 12 hours of music a week which was notched at frequencies corresponding more to the ringing they perceived as a result of the tinnitus. While there is still data being gathered on this particular method of treating tinnitus, the results that have been achieved so far are very promising for those who have this condition.
