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The ACTIVE Study and DTx: A New Chapter for Auditory-Brain Training?

A dispatch from Hearing Health Matters — filed

Female clinician in white coat showing a tablet screen to an older male patient seated beside her at a desk.
✦ PlateFemale clinician in white coat showing a tablet screen to an older male patient seated beside her at a desk.

Editor’s note : Ear to the Ground is a new monthly column from Dr. Brian Taylor, offering timely reflections on research, technology, clinical practice, and emerging trends in hearing care. You can read last month’s column here . By now, it’s likely all hearing care professionals have some familiarity with the ACHIEVE study , which was a randomized controlled trial that asked this question: Can reducing the...

Clinical Takeaway

No actionable change — this is a reflective opinion column exploring an emerging concept; no clinical trial data specific to auditory digital therapeutics is presented.

Why It Matters

If digital therapeutics can be shown to improve auditory-brain function in people with hearing loss, it could expand the scope of hearing care beyond the hearing aid fitting itself.

Key Points
  1. 01Column revisits the ACTIVE study, which examined cognitive training in older adults, and draws parallels to auditory-brain training.
  2. 02Digital therapeutics (DTx) are app- or software-based interventions intended to treat or manage a condition.
  3. 03Author reflects on emerging trends rather than presenting new clinical trial data.
  4. 04The piece highlights a gap between promising research concepts and validated audiology-specific DTx tools.
  5. 05Intended as a thought-leadership discussion, not a practice-guidance update.
Claims & Evidence

The ACTIVE study findings are relevant to auditory-brain training in hearing care.

opinionpartially supported

Digital therapeutics represent an emerging and promising approach for auditory rehabilitation.

opinionunclear
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