Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026
Multi-Modal Home Sleep Monitoring in Older Adults
Published on: January 26, 2019
Sleep complaints in elderly tinnitus patients: a controlled study
1Ecole d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et en cognition, Université de Montréal, Canada. sylvie.hebert@umontreal.ca
Objectives:
Sleep difficulties are among the most frequent complaints associated with tinnitus. Yet most studies reporting on this problem are rather succinct, and all of them lack proper age- and health-matched control subjects.
Design:
The present study reports on 102 participants (51 with and 51 without tinnitus), assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Beck-II depression inventory, a hyperacusis questionnaire, and a tinnitus-reaction questionnaire (tinnitus group only). Participants were matched for health and relevant socioeconomic factors.
Results:
Results show that tinnitus patients have greater self-reported sleep difficulties compared with control subjects, specifically sleep efficiency and sleep quality, and that high tinnitus-related distress is associated with greater sleep disturbance.
Conclusions:
Rather than hearing loss, sleep complaints in this population are mainly explained by hyperacusis, a hallmark of tinnitus, and to a lesser extent by subclinical depressive symptoms.
