What Is the Oto Program?
Oto is a smartphone app for adults with tinnitus, and it is not something you download and work out on your own. We recommend it after your tinnitus evaluation, we set it up with you in the clinic against what your assessment showed, and we review how you are getting on at your follow-up appointments.
The program runs for eight weeks. Each day there is a short session of around ten minutes using therapeutic sound, with CBT-based techniques alongside that work on the attention you give your tinnitus, on your sleep, and on the stress that makes tinnitus harder to live with. Outside the sessions there is a library of therapeutic sound you can use whenever you need it, including at night.
What We Will Ask You to Do
- Around ten minutes a day, most days, for eight weeks.
- Fill in the Tinnitus Functional Index questionnaire in the app when it prompts you, so we can both see whether things are moving.
- Come back for your follow-up appointments so we can adjust the plan.
Is Oto Backed by Research?
Oto’s daily sessions use therapeutic sound, with CBT-based techniques alongside. That approach is recommended for tinnitus management by NICE, by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and by Cochrane.
Oto has been studied in a randomized controlled trial at Flinders University. Ninety-six adults were randomized either to use Oto or to a wait-list control group. At six months, the group using Oto showed a statistically significant improvement on the Tinnitus Functional Index, a validated measure of how much tinnitus is affecting daily life, with a 9-point reduction and an effect size of 0.62.
You can read more about Oto’s research at joinoto.com/research.
How Sound Therapy Fits With Your Other Treatment
Sound therapy is not an alternative to the rest of your care, and you will not be asked to choose between them.
If you are using Lenire, Oto runs alongside it. Lenire is bimodal neuromodulation: you wear headphones and hold a small device against your tongue, and we configure it for you here. Oto is the part of the plan that gives you a daily routine and support in the weeks between your appointments. Most of our Lenire patients use both.
If you wear hearing aids with a tinnitus masking program, your aids restore the sound you have been missing and mask your tinnitus during the day. Oto gives you sound you control from your own phone, including at night when your aids are out.
And if you are not a candidate for a device and do not need hearing aids, Oto is used on its own.
Who Is It For?
Oto is for adults 18 and over with bothersome tinnitus, meaning tinnitus that is affecting your sleep, your concentration, your mood or your work.
It is not the right starting point for everyone. Tinnitus that came on suddenly, tinnitus in one ear only, or tinnitus that pulses in time with your heartbeat all need to be looked at properly first, and we will refer you on if that is what your assessment shows.
Oto is a program, not a cure for tinnitus. No cure currently exists. What the program gives you is a structured way to make your tinnitus easier to live with, and a clinician here who is following your progress.
Getting Started
Sound therapy starts with an evaluation, because we need to know what your tinnitus actually sounds like before we can give you sound to use against it. Call us at (330) 923-5150 or request an appointment and ask for a tinnitus evaluation.
You can also look at the program itself, and the daily routine patients follow at home, on Oto’s own website.