Lyric 24/7 hearing: could it help those with tinnitus?

Since its launch in 2008, Lyric represents the first and only device of its kind establishing a new category of hearing solution: 24/7 extended wear. Lyric is placed several millimetres within the ear canal, near the tympanic membrane, so it is 100% invisible, and worn 24 hours a day for months at a time. Lyric is worn during all daily activities including showering, sleeping and exercising. This frees the wearer from typical hassles presented by traditional hearing aids, including multiple daily device insertions or removals, battery changes, and cleaning. Moreover, the placement of the device near the tympanic membrane enables the anatomy of the ear to naturally transform sound before it enters the Lyric microphone for amplification (Figure 1). Lyric not only delivers significant acoustic, practical, and cosmetic benefits to wearers, but it also offers practical improvements to the option of daily wear devices. Patients report ease of use with the phone, in wind, hearing important sounds during the night and never misplacing their hearing devices. Lyric also provides a new opportunity to understand how continuous auditory stimulation could impact patients with mild to moderate hearing loss – and more specifically, patients with tinnitus. The tinnitus dilemma Subjective tinnitus, the phantom perception of sound with no identifiable sound source, significantly reduces an individual’s quality of life [1]. The tinnitus patient lives with a complex constellation of symptoms including challenges to sleep, concentration, and cognition that, over time, can include anxiety, anger, depression, and loss of control [2]. Additionally, these patients have well-characterised alterations in neuronal activity in auditory and non-auditory pathways [3]. For the practitioner, evaluation and care of tinnitus is complicated by the diversity of clinical presentations, the lack of a single underlying cause (Table 1), patient comorbidities, wide promotion of nonproven treatments, the variability in treatment response, and the neediness of the patient. Treatment also requires a variety of types of intervention that are not easily provided by a single practitioner. However, a common underlying pathophysiology shared by tinnitus patients is that 80% have a concomitant hearing deficit that they are often not aware of [4]. Subjective tinnitus has an estimated 1014% prevalence worldwide [5] and tinnitus patients are in the office with increasing frequency because, different from the 10% of people living with self-reported Lyric 24/7 hearing: could it help those with tinnitus?