A holistic approach including sound therapy and cardiac coherence for the management of chronic pain and tinnitus in Canadian Veterans

Chronic pain and tinnitus (ringing in the ears) are among the most common health conditions found in veterans. They both can significantly impair the quality of life of veterans and likely interact. To better manage these conditions an application combining respiration exercises, called cardiac coherence exercises (CC), and sound therapy was developed. CC consists in breathing slowly at a specific inspiration and expiration rate that is known to restore the balance of the autonomic nervous system. Sound therapy is used to mask the tinnitus sound and/or remove the person’s attention away from the tinnitus sound. The envelope of the sound stimulation, developed for the smartphone application, was designed to act as a guide for the CC exercise: the sound increases and then decreases to guide the respiration exercise (sound increase: inspiration, sound decrease: expiration). The main objective of the project is to evaluate the benefit of regular training of a 5-minute CC exercise on pain and tinnitus intensity and disability using the new application over a month (at least three times a day: before breakfast, before lunch around 12h00 and late in the afternoon).

Faculty Supervisor:

Philippe Fournier

Student:

Partner:

Fondation québécoise des Vétérans;Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans;Acouphènes Québec

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Université Laval

Program: