Tinnitus is best viewed as a “phantom noise”. It is the medical term for “hearing” a continuous sound in the ears when there is no external source for that sound. Research has shown that the brain is responsible.

Tinnitus affects 15% percent of the world population. 20% of those with tinnitus are severely disabled, that is 3% of the total population. The number of young people with tinnitus has doubled in recent years, mainly due to wearing in-ear buds and exposure to noise in nightlife, at festivals and concerts.

The economic impact of Tinnitus is significant. There is the personal economic loss to an individual with tinnitus: lost earnings, productivity, and health expenses. The cost to the U.S. society as a whole has been estimated at upwards of $26 billion annually. A 2013 study on the costs of Tinnitus in the Netherlands concluded the total mean societal cost of illness of tinnitus in the Dutch population in 2009 to be €6.8 billion. The costs for delivering tinnitus-related healthcare services to tinnitus patients are also extremely high.

Traditional evidence-based approaches have so far failed to develop any (FDA or CE approved) treatments for tinnitus, after many years of tinnitus research.

It is time for a new approach: War On Tinnitus. This concept of war approach has been proven highly successful in fighting AIDS. It is a highly innovative way to find a solution for tinnitus in a short time frame, i.e., 3 to 5 years. To reduce and ideally abolish the sound – in contrast to most tinnitus studies that attempt to reduce the suffering associated with the tinnitus.

The approach is to develop treatments based on the concept of war, on how a war is fought: use whatever available relevant scientific information exists to create a strategy that is multimodal and surprising. The program consists of 8 different research approaches over a 4-year period. With a focus on the brain, as the brain is the generator of tinnitus, even when triggered from the ear.

The ‘War On Tinnitus’ program has been developed and will be led by a team of highly experienced Tinnitus-research professionals:

Dirk De Ridder, Professor Neurosurgery, University Otago

Co-Founder BRAI3N-Centre for neuromodulation, Ghent

Divya Adhia & Matt Hall, research fellows at University of Otago.

The TinnitusFree Foundation aims to raise funds to cover the total cost of the ‘War On Tinnitus’ research project: €690.000 for the 4 year period.

(this is the tinnitus activity in the brain of the undersigned, measured via EEG)

For further info:
Frank van Hoorn
frank@tinnitusfree.eu
+ 31 654 798182.