Review of the Scienctific Paper
The Neosensory Duo is a device that you hire for a period of time, to train you to ignore your tinnitus. It is bimodal stimulation, which in this case is Hearing + Touch (two modes or senses involved). Essentially, it delivers a 'tap' to your wrist, which the researchers say will help you to tune out your tinnitus.
The good folks who put together this device published a paper to show their work. This uses the Tinnitus Functional Index questionnaire to put a number on how much tinnitus impacts on their life. A reduction in this score would suggest that they are more habituated, less impacted by tinnitus distress. They say their device has improved the distress people feel from their tinnitus.
Here, I have reviewed the paper with the help of everyone's favourite tinnitus researcher, Dr James Jackson.
James' Thoughts
James notes that it is published in a low-impact journal that is less recognised [what he means is, it's not good enough to get published in a better journal]. The sample (45 people) is very small and even smaller when split into two groups. Participants are self-selecting and there is no information given on their hearing ability.
Control group was well designed however he would like to have seen a group where they just received taps, one with tones, one with taps+tones.
He feels the statistics and the power of the stats is less than great. This means it may not be proving what it thinks it is proving. It may not be replicable.
Sally's Thoughts
Bimodal stimulation sounds very interesting to laymen, however it is easily done. Look at the sky and listen to the birds - this is bimodal stimulation. I personally teach techniques that use bi (and even tri) stimulation to help people redirect attention from tinnitus. I agree with the technique, but fundamentally disagree that you need a device to do it. However, I recognise that some people like to have, hold and progress through a course, so was interested in Neosensory Duo's outcomes. I am also a huge fan of David Eagleman's neuroscience work/education.
In terms of the results of their own study, these are as I would expect. Tones alone offer some benefit. Tones plus tapping offer slightly more benefit. It's statistically significant, but I would be very surprised if anyone in reality felt better with those three points of difference, given the scale is so large and so variable. To me this data is actively saying "just listen to tones (or white noise, or pink noise) and don't hire the wristband". Everything after that is marketing speak.
Cost wise and ease wise, it's clearly a lot better than Lenire, but still I would not be marketing this device. It's own paper has proven that there's barely a difference between the control and the intervention subjects.
From working with so many tinnitus patients, I am quite sure that a good quality intervention without a gadget is going to be just as good and more sustainable than this. I feel that we are now trying to out-Lenire Lenire. Bear in mind that Lenire did not work well to start with! Whether a device is less onerous than Lenire (this one is) is moot.
I would like to see a device that costs so much be tested against something that costs very little. Is it better than sitting down and talking to a patient about tinnitus? I suspect not. Back when I did my undergraduate project, it was obvious that noise generators were no better than giving patients good information.
This is another paper that has been written to show that you ought to buy a device, to my mind. Statistical significance is interesting, but not that interesting. It's like buying a pair of shoes that make you a 1/4 inch taller.
On the plus side, it's safe and won't take up too much of your time. But I would try noise generation (e.g. headphones or hearing aids) if you want something to contrast external sounds against internal signals. I would try looking at something interesting when you hear tinnitus, to rewire your brain and stop it reinforcing tinnitus. I suspect no one will fund that study as there is no money in it.
Comments