Acoustic neuroma (vestibular schwannoma) Expand An acoustic neuroma is a type of non-cancerous (benign) brain tumour. It's also known as a vestibular schwannoma. Acoustic neuromas grow on the nerve used for hearing and balance, which can cause problems such as hearing loss and unsteadiness.
Acupuncture Expand Acupuncture is a treatment derived from ancient Chinese medicine. Fine needles are inserted at certain sites in the body for therapeutic or preventative purposes.
Cognitive behavioural therapy Expand A talking therapy that can help people manage problems by changing the way they think and behave. It's most commonly used to treat anxiety and depression, but can be useful for other mental and physical health problems.
Control group Expand A group in an experiment or study that does not receive treatment by the researchers and is then used as a benchmark to measure how the other tested subjects do.
Neurofeedback Expand Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback that measures brain waves to produce a signal that can be used as feedback to teach self-regulation of brain function.
Physiotherapy Expand Physiotherapy is the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity by physical methods such as massage, heat treatment, and exercise rather than by drugs or surgery.
Placebo Expand An inactive substance or other sham form of therapy administered to a patient usually to compare its effects with those of a real drug or treatment.
Placebo effect Expand A phenomenon in which a placebo can sometimes improve a patient’s condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful.
Pulsatile tinnitus Expand Pulsatile tinnitus is a rhythmical noise that usually has the same rate as the heart. This is easily checked by feeling the pulse at the same time as listening to the tinnitus. There are a few types of tinnitus in which a rhythmical sound is experienced that is not in time with the pulse. Download our pulsatile tinnitus leaflet: Pulsatile_Tinnitus_Ver_2.1.pdf Pulsatile_Tinnitus_Ver_2.1_LARGE_PRINT.pdf
Randomised control trial (RCT) Expand A study in which a number of similar people are randomly assigned to 2 (or more) groups to test a specific drug or treatment. One group (the experimental group) receives the treatment being tested, the other (the comparison or control group) receives an alternative treatment, a dummy treatment (placebo) or no treatment at all. The groups are followed up to see how effective the experimental treatment was.
Somatic tinnitus Expand Somatic tinnitus is a condition where the sensory system in the body can cause or influence tinnitus in some way eg reducing the perception of tinnitus by moving the jaw.
Somatosensory Expand The somatosensory system is the part of the sensory system concerned with the conscious perception of touch, pressure, pain, temperature, position, movement, and vibration