Talk:Rinne test

effect on opposite ear
I don't think I understand the comment in this section. Should it say if the opposite ear is masked? I assume the comment relates to blocking out ambient background noise, or is it in fact referring to blocking out transmitted sounds from the skull?

Rinne test
I believe this page needs to be edited. I'm studying for upcoming nursing boards; I'm hopeful that someone with greater expertise than mine in otolaryngology will edit it.

The following link appears to indicate that the Wiki page contains errors. See below for ambiguous results from another expert. Nursing textbooks I've consulted appear to contradict each other.

From http://www.american-hearing.org/testing/hearing_test.html

Hearing Testing

Timothy C. Hain, MD Last edited: 5/4/2002

"The single most common office test is a tuning fork test called the Rinne, named after Adolf Rinne of Gottingen, who described this test in 1855. In the Rinne test, a comparison is made between hearing elicited by placing the base of a tuning fork applied to the mastoid area (bone), and then after the sound is no longer appreciated, the vibrating top is placed one inch from the external ear canal (air). A positive Rinne indicate an air-bone gap and, therefore, presumed presence of a conductive hearing loss..."

(c) Timothy C. Hain, MD. 2002

A description of Dr. Hain's credentials:

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/cv/hain-t.htm

This link from google books, a audiology textbook, explains how the test evolved into a timed test to be more accurate, rather than the older method of asking the patient which sound is perceived to be louder (by air or by bone conduction) and the nature of positive/negative results in the opinion of the author. It would appear that the convention for this test is not to use "positive" or "negative" to describe results, but for example, AC>BC or AC<BC, to avoid ambiguity.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UqXS8CLJML4C&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22rinne+test%22&source=web&ots=nq78vAQuOS&sig=yoSic6nboyOFdtc4QwW8MMD15Ls

Timing conductive sound appreciation with Rinne??
I believe that the current text is incorrect. Once the patient is unable to hear sound through bone, the tuning fork is placed in front of the ear. For a negative test - no sound is heard. For a positive test, the sound is heard ('normal'). It does not matter the length of time that the sound is heard in each. That is more a function of the tuning fork itself than a measure of the patient's hearing!

Minor copyedit
the word "air" has been unnecessarily made as a hypertext that links to something non-medical and I am sure that anybody who is reading this article definitely does not want to know what "air" is, when he/she is searching for Rinne's test. I am removing the link and would rather suggest linking the actual phrase in use there, i.e. "air conduction" which relates better with the topic of this article. (The page for "air conduction" does not exist currently) Red Pen (talk) 10:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)