Know what these are?

If you said, “tuning forks” you’d be right!

Before electronic tuners were invented, these were used to tune instruments. But even in our electronic and highly advanced age, tuning forks are still a useful for ENT’s.

Our ears can hear vibration through the bones of our head, and we can find out if hearing loss is due to sound not getting through to the inner ear organs (called “conductive hearing loss”) by doing two different tuning fork tests. One test is called the “Weber” test. First, whack a 256 Hz fork to charge it. Then, place it in the middle of your forehead. If you hear it equally in both ears, then you either don’t have hearing loss, or you have equal loss on each side. If you have a conductive hearing loss, you’ll actually hear the sound louder in the worse hearing ear. We can replicate this by sticking our finger in our ear and then doing the test. See? Louder in the ear that we have blocked up.

The other test is called the “Rinne” test. I usually do this test with a 512 Hz fork. After charging it, I place it behind the ear and then move it to just outside the ear and let a patient hear it through the air. Normal hearing patients (and those that have nerve hearing loss, called “sensorineural hearing loss”) will hear the air conduction (outside the ear) better than bone conduction (behind the ear through the bone). But those that have a significantly blocked ear (from wax, an ear drum hole, or a problem with the tiny ear bones), will often hear the bone conduction louder. This can indicate how severe the loss is, and can give me an good indication of how effective surgery might be, even without a hearing test (audiogram).

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Teach & Learn, EarErin ShellenbergerJune 29, 2020hearing evaulation, ear