INTRODUCTION: Several counseling and sound therapy protocols have been developed in recent years. Tinnitus Activities Treatment (TAT), developed by Tyler (2004), aims to modify the patient's reaction to tinnitus in order to achieve habituation. The acoustic stimulation can involve the use of amplification by using a sound generator and/or external sound generators or a combination of these. OBJECTIVE: To determine the efficacy of the combined use of amplification and a sound generator compared to amplification alone in patients with hearing loss and tinnitus subjected to the TAT protocol. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This multi-center, randomized crossover clinical trial was approved by the appropriate ethics committees. Ten adults with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss with tinnitus for more than 6 months were randomly divided into 2 groups. Group 1 used the Life 101 (Siemens) hearing aid for 4 months in amplification alone mode. After 2 months of wash-out, they again used the same hearing aid in the combined mode for 4 more months. Group 2 began with the combined mode and then proceeded to the amplification alone after a wash-out period. RESULTS: The handicap caused by tinnitus in the Group 1 reduced from 52 to 43.2 in Phase 1 and from 43.2 to 22.8 in Phase 2. In the Group 2, the reduction was from 54.6 to 19.2 in Phase 1 and from 44.8 to 30.2 in Phase 2. CONCLUSION: The combined use of amplification and a sound generator was more effective in reducing the handicap caused by tinnitus compared to amplification alone.
