Therapy app against earpups Technician health insurance pays helping tinnitus app

For the first time a statutory health insurance offers an app on prescription. From October 2015, the Techniker Krankenkasse will use the costs for a treatment app for tinnitus. The so-called "Tinnitracks App" was designed by the Hamburg company "Sonormed" and should cost 19.90 euros a month. Also participating is the German Professional Association of Otolaryngologists who support this project.

A whistling or a noise - around three million people in Germany know this when a constant noise in the ear disturbs. And every hundredth suffers so much that this tinnitus must be treated by a doctor - and not every method leads to success. A new app offers sufferers now an amazingly simple treatment alternative: By listening to their favorite music for at least 90 minutes a day over a period of twelve months, they train the trained sound of their hearing center. This is made possible by the app "Tinnitracks". It is available from the beginning of October for insured persons of the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) on prescription - prescribed by Hamburg ear, nose and throat doctors.

New Tinitus app to alleviate ear noise. Image: Finanzfoto - fotolia

The so-called "imaginary" tinnitus is not caused by a real noise but by an overactivity of certain nerve cells in the auditory center of the brain. These are located there - similar to the keys on a piano - arranged according to their frequency and cause a corresponding noise when they are over-stimulated. For the therapy, the ear, nose and throat specialist determines the individual tinnitus frequency and thus determines which cells should be spared from the favorite music during therapy by filtering out the sound. The regular listening to the filtered music should then reduce the overactivity of the affected nerve cells and so relieve the tinnitus sustainably.

In clinical trials, Tinnitrack's frequency filtering technique has already proven its effectiveness in patients 18-65 years of age and with a tinnitus frequency below 8,500 Hertz. The results provide a good basis for TK to test the app as an alternative to conventional therapies under routine conditions.

"With Tinnitracks, the app becomes a therapist. And it can be an alternative to conventional treatment options, "says Klaus Rupp, Head of Supply Management at TK. For once the ear, nose and throat specialist has precisely determined the individual tinnitus frequency, the therapy is carried out via smartphone alone. This is made possible by the invention of the Hamburg start-up Sonormed GmbH in combination with a supply contract of the TK and the German Professional Association of Otolaryngologists e. V. The goal: to gain initial experience with tinnitus as a treatment alternative under routine conditions and to roll out the treatment concept nationwide if successful. For this reason, around 30 ear, nose and throat doctors are starting in Hamburg. Patients can attend regardless of their place of residence if they are undergoing treatment with one of these doctors.