Research/Clinical Interests
Hearing aids
Outcome measures
Pediatric amplification
Courses Taught in the Past Five Years
HESP 700: Hearing Aids I
Research/Clinical Activities
LaGuinn Sherlock is the research coordinator for Dr. Formby's NIH-funded study, "Intervention for Reduced Sound Tolerance," and is responsible for subject recruitment, study design, data collection and data analysis. The purpose of the study is t o establish whether modified Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) can provide a viable intervention for augmenting Loudness Discomfort Level (LDL) thresholds and for remediating the sound tolerance problems suffered by hyperacusic and non-hyperacusic hearing-impaired listeners, thus, enabling these individuals for the first time to become successful hearing aid users.
For the past decade, the University of Maryland Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Center has run a highly successful, but unconventional clinical program for evaluating and treating patients who suffer from tinnitus and supra- threshold hypersensitivity to sound (hyperacusis). The center uses an habituation-based treatment protocol termed Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT), which was pioneered and developed in the Division of Otolaryngology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore . The clinical protocol evolved from a neurophysiological model of tinnitus. TRT involves the use of directive counseling (aimed at neutralizing the negative emotional reaction or annoyance to the tinnitus) combined with external low-level, broadband noise produced by wearable noise sources. In TRT theory, the purpose of enhanced external sound is meant to increase the background level of spontaneous and evoked neuronal activity within the auditory system, thereby interfering with detection of the tinnitus by decreasing the contrast between the neuronal activity that represents the tinnitus signal and the background neuronal activity. It is this reduction in the signal/background contrast that is assumed to facilitate habituation of the tinnitus. The use of low-level external sound in habituation-based TRT differs significantly in both theory and practice from conventional interventions for tinnitus that use much higher intensity external sound as a means to mask or cover up the annoying tinnitus signal. Examination of 10 years of clinical data has revealed that with TRT treatment, the patients' sound tolerance levels (loudness discomfort levels for puretone stimuli) increase, on average by 12-18 dB over the course of the intervention. This is a substantial shift in sound tolerance and creates an enlarged dynamic range for the TRT patient. This has significance for fitting hearing aids on patients with limited dynamic ranges between the hearing thresholds and loudness discomfort levels.
Volunteers with hearing loss are needed for this study. We are recruiting people with hearing loss who are bothered by loud sounds, as well as people who do not have hearing aids, or have hearing aids they are not using. Interested participants will be enrolled in this NIH-sponsored experimental protocol and scheduled for periodic evaluations for up to one year. Participants will be compensated for their time. For more information, please contact the research coordinator, LaGuinn Sherlock, at (410) 328-5947 or by e-mail at gsherlock@smail.umaryland.edu.
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