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Hearing Problems and Sound Therapy

Hearing loss is not inevitable with age. It is the number of years of noise abuse that causes hearing deterioration, not the number of years of living. Young people who listen to rock music often have the same hearing level as 50 year old factory workers. However, people of all ages - including those in their 80s - have experienced dramatic improvement in their hearing by using Sound Therapy.

There are many contributing causes to hearing problems. Some of the more common ones include:

• Cochlear damage due to prolonged exposure to loud noise ("noise induced hearing loss" or "industrial deafness").
• Lack of high frequency sound to stimulate the ear.
• Lack of good muscle tone in the middle ear, caused by stress or poor diet.
• Poor central auditory processing (see Cocktail Party Syndrome)
• Psychological factors - inability to resolve personal issues and communicate.
• Otosclerosis - overgrowth of the cochlear bone which results in fusing the stapes to the cochlea.

Photo courtesy of mystical child (my time is not my own)

Types of hearing loss

Conductive hearing loss refers to any disorder in the sound transmission system in the middle ear, which includes both bones and muscles. Sometimes surgery is required to rectify the problem. Sound Therapy can be used after an operation, as any surgery requires post-operative rehabilitation.

Sensorineural hearing loss refers to damage which has occurred inside the inner ear. Loud or prolonged noise flattens the fine, hair-like sensor cells (called "cilia") in the inner ear, which means they can't pick up sound vibrations anymore. This prevents the sound from reaching the auditory nerve. A diagnosis of nerve deafness does not necessarily mean that the nerve is damaged - it may be that the cilia have been flattened.

How Sound Therapy improves hearing

Sound Therapy was developed by Dr Alfred Tomatis (1920 - 2001), a French Ear, Nose & Throat specialist, who in 1946 developed his own branch of research known as audio-psycho-phonology, which bridges medicine, psychology, music therapy, speech therapy, and special education.

Whether congenital or acquired, physical or emotional, hearing may improve through Sound Therapy.

Exercising the muscles

The middle ear contains two tiny muscles - the tensor tympani and the stapedius - which play an active role in the functioning of the ear. Lack of tone and flexibility in these muscles means that the ear loses its ability to recognise certain frequencies of sound, so these sounds never reach the inner ear.

The alternating high and low frequencies of Sound Therapy cause the ear muscles to repeatedly tense and relax. This exercise restores muscle tone and improves the functioning of the whole ear mechanism.

Stimulating the cilia

On the Sound Therapy CDs, the low frequency sounds are progressively removed and the high frequency sounds are augmented. These high frequencies stimulate the cilia. Where the cilia have been flattened by too much noise, the high frequency sound stimulates them to return to their upright position. This restores one's hearing in the high frequencies.

Psychological opening

Early in his research, Dr Tomatis discovered that the results of hearing tests varied greatly depending on the subject's motivation to demonstrate a good or bad level of hearing. He discovered a voluntary, though unconscious, element to our ability to hear.

Hearing is sometimes closed down to some extent for psychological reasons. Sound Therapy encourages resolution of psychological issues by reintroducing high frequency sound and re-creating the pre-birth experience of sound. As the psychological issues are resolved, one can allow oneself to open to the full range of hearing.

Learn more about how Sound Therapy rehabilitates the ear.

Benefits of using Sound Therapy

Sound Therapy offers a great alternative for treating hearing loss as it:

• assists with hearing in a noisy room, whereas hearing aids often make this worse
• tunes up high frequency hearing, making speech comprehension easier
• is a natural approach, improving the body's own function rather than compensating with a device
• may eliminate or delay the need for hearing aids in mild cases of hearing loss

If you already have a hearing aid, Sound Therapy can help you use your aids more successfully. Because it activates the ear muscles, Sound Therapy improves the focusing function of the ear and improves central auditory processing. Some hearing aid users get such significant improvement from Sound Therapy that they no longer need their aids.

Learn more about how to use Sound Therapy.

The Research of Dr Tomatis

As his initial concern was with hearing loss, Dr Tomatis' first experiments dealt with altering the auditory curve. Tomatis designed an apparatus, called the "Electronic Ear", which could manipulate the frequencies of sounds so it could match a sound to a person's auditory curve, or vice versa, it could boost the deficient frequencies to enable someone to hear as a normal ear would hear.

The repair that he was able to achieve initially was only temporary. Continuing his experiements, Tomatis discovered that if treatment with the Electronic Ear is carried out consistently over a certain number of hours and period of time, the effects became permanent.

The secret to achieving the permanent reparation of hearing lies in the gymnastic effect of the Electronic Ear upon the hearing mechanism. The Electronic Ear does more than simply present a corrected sound scope to the ear - it presents fluctuating sounds, alternating through high and low channels so that the ear is constantly forced to adjust between high and low tones. This gymnasticises the middle ear muscles, giving the ear a complete work-out in the act of listening. The muscles thus regain their natural tone, which accounts on a physical level for the improved hearing.

The Sound Therapy programs have all been recorded using the Electronic Ear

Listener's Stories

Dan Stuckel - Alberta, Canada

"Before I began using the Sound Therapy tapes my hearing was becoming progressively worse. Ear specialists told me it was caused by nerve damage, therefore there was nothing which could be done for me. They said the ringing in my ears would become louder as time went on, thereby reducing my ability to hear.

"I purchased an 'in the ear model' hearing aid after I found their predictions to be correct. My hearing did indeed deteriorate. I found I had to wear the hearing aid more and more as time went on, to a point where I was wearing it 80% of the time.

"After about 3 weeks of beginning the Sound Therapy, the ringing in my ears began to subside. Along with that my hearing also began to improve. One day I felt something almost like a minor earthquake taking place deep within my ears. Since then my hearing has improved to such an extent that I seldom have to use my hearing aid. I am able to function quite well without it now, after 7 months of Sound Therapy.

Linda Taylor Anderson - Florida, USA

"After less than sixty hours of listening, suddenly, incredibly, new sounds were singing in my ears. I had assumed I'd always heard them, but it is amazing how much we hear, yet do not hear.

"I am now acutely conscious of sound, all sound, including my own voice which I can now control. Octavizing up or down is now easily accomplished. It is the sound therapy that has gifted me with this new awareness.

Flick Evans - Victoria, Australia

"In the early part of 1989, I began to suffer from Tinnitus and only by mid 1989 had received medical advice that nothing could be done about it. I read the Sound Therapy book from cover to cover at least four times, and each time put it down - convinced that it was just too good to be true.

"I mentioned it to a member of our local library, who told me that her daughter was using the tapes and "wished that she had started 2 years earlier." So I decided to try them, without any great hopes or expectations.

"I had been listening for approximately 100 hours when I suddenly became aware that the Tinnitus whistle had stopped - I wasn't sure WHEN it stopped - but it had.

"About the same time I noticed distinct improvement in hearing to my left ear - there had been noticeable loss in that ear for about 3 years.

"I had a client who served in the Royal Navy during the last War - in Gun turrets on board ships in action. His hearing was affected to the extent that one had to raise ones voice when conversing with him. After my hearing improvement I started talking to him about Sound Therapy - and eventually found him with his Walkman and tapes. A few weeks later I received a phone call at 11 p.m. one evening. It was my client - and his message was that "I thought I would ring and let you know that I have just heard my wife's Microwave 'BEEP' for the first time." 'Nuff said!

"I do not know what response others will get from the tapes. I can only say that I have been VERY, VERY satisfied."