A vibrating tuning fork-touched to a patient’s extremities while her eyes are closed (usually a distal joint, said Hundt, like the fingers or toes)-can help a nurse determine whether a patient has neuropathy or a spinal injury. Tuning forks are also useful in assessing a patient’s loss of neurologic sensation, explained assistant professor Beth Hundt. The Rinne, therefore, helps nurses determine whether hearing loss is indicated, and refer the patient to an appropriate specialist if it is. In a healthy ear, conduction of sound through air should be greater than perception of sound through bone. In each position, the patient indicates whether they hear the sound, and signal when they perceive that the sound stops. For the Rinne Test, a nurse places the vibrating tuning fork against the mastoid bone behind the patient’s ear for a few seconds, then moves it in front of the ear canal. The Weber test-in which a nurse strikes a tuning fork and places its stem on the crown of a patient’s head or forehead, equidistant from each ear-assesses whether hearing is better on one side or the other. Brown, superintendent of nurses at the training school of the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital), “in testing in the hearing to find tone limits that is, the lowest and the highest tone a patient can ear, and at the same time note whether he can hear the intermediate tones.”Īt the turn of the nineteenth century and today, advanced practice nursing students do the Weber and Rinne Tests to assess whether and what kind of hearing loss is present. “It is necessary,” assert the authors of the 1937 nursing textbook NURSING IN DISEASES OF THE EYE, EAR, NOSE, AND THROAT (by, among others, registered nurse Mary P. Early identification of a problem allows you to get early treatment, which in some cases can prevent total hearing loss.In nursing, tuning forks were used then and now to assess patients’ hearing and, if loss is indicated, to help determine whether the reason for the loss was due to problems with “sound-conducting” or “sound-perceiving.” Ongoing exposure to loud noises and aging are common reasons for this type of hearing loss.ĭoctors use both Rinne and Weber tests to evaluate your hearing. This includes the auditory nerve, hair cells in the inner ear, and other parts of the cochlea. Sensorineural hearing loss occurs when there’s damage to any part of the specialized nervous system of the ear. damage to the small bones within the middle ear.This can be caused by problems in the ear canal, eardrum, or middle ear, such as: Bone conduction hearing occurs through vibrations picked up by the ear’s specialized nervous system.Ī Weber test is another way to evaluate conductive and sensorineural hearing losses.Ĭonductive hearing loss occurs when sound waves are unable to pass through the middle ear to the inner ear. Air conduction hearing occurs through air near the ear, and it involves the ear canal and eardrum. This determination allows a doctor to come up with a treatment plan for your hearing changes.Ī Rinne test evaluates hearing loss by comparing air conduction to bone conduction.
They help determine whether you may have conductive or sensorineural hearing loss. Rinne and Weber tests are exams that test for hearing loss.
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