What is Weber test?

Weber test is a screening technique used to determine whether the patient has hearing loss in one of his ears. Tuning fork generates a tone that travels to the patient's ear bubble through the face bones. If the patient hears a softer sound or sound that is scattered earlier in one or the other ear, it is an indication of hearing loss.

A simple and fast screening test is used to check asymmetric hearing loss rather than hearing loss that occurs in both ears. In this test, the tuning fork is hit and then placed along various places on the middle line of the patient's skull. If the test results are normal, the subject will hear the sound of the tuning fork equally in both ears, both in terms of sound and its intensity.

If the patient hears the fork sound differently between two ears, it may be a sign of conductive or sensorineural hearing loss. In a conductive hearing loss, there is a representative with the ability of the ear canal to perform sound waves until uShipping drum. The condition is usually caused by an obstacle, whether from a foreign body, ears, tumor or other causes.

Screening with Weber test will show increased hearing in the ear affected by conductive hearing loss. Although it may seem contrainuitive, the ear with a conductive hearing loss is able to hear a tuning fork through the face bones, because the sound does not have to travel through the air in the ear canal. Sound waves that usually travel through the air, along the ear canal, are defended in the case of conductive hearing loss. The sounds of the surroundings in the test room are damaged by the affected ear, causing sound waves passing the bones on the face of the Weber test seem more intense in this ear.

The second type of hearing loss, sensorineural hearing loss, Will shows the opposite results in Weber's test. In this type of hearing loss is a problem with the nerves in the ear, part of the ear responsible for the hearing or the center of the brain of the domesticNot hearing. The affected ear is not better able to hear the sound of bones, because the problem is not to add sound waves to the ear drum, but rather when processing these sound waves as soon as it arrives.