Restoration of Deafferentation Reduces Tinnitus, Anxiety, and Depression: A Retrospective Study on Cochlear Implant Patients

This study was aimed at investigating the effect of cochlear implants (CIs) on tinnitus distress and psychological comorbidities in patients with profound BD. This multicenter retrospective study reviewed 51 patients with severe postlingual BD who underwent cochlear implantation; 49 patients underwent unilateral cochlear implantation, and 2 patients underwent bilateral cochlear implantation. The patients were asked to complete all the questionnaires, including the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI), the visual analog scale (VAS) score, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Questionnaire (HADS), the Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP), and the Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR), at least 4 months after implantation when the CI was on or off, in approximately May-June 2019. In our study, 94% (48/51) of BD patients suffered from tinnitus before CI, and 77% (37/48) of them suffered from bilateral tinnitus. In addition, 50.9% (26/51) of the CI patients were suffering from anxiety, 52.9% (27/51) of them were suffering from depression (score ≥ 8), and 66.7% (34/51) (27/51) of them were suffering from anxiety or depression. Cochlear implantation could reduce tinnitus more obviously when the CI was on than when the CI was off. Cochlear implantation also reduced anxiety/depression severity. There were significantly positive correlations between tinnitus severity and anxiety/depression severity before and after surgery. Moreover, hearing improvement is positively correlated w...
Source: Neural Plasticity - Category: Neurology Authors: Source Type: research