Weber Test
If you have a patient suffering from hearing loss, conduct the Weber Test to determine if the patient is dealing with unilateral conductive or sensorineural hearing loss.
Fact Checked by Nate Lacson.
What is the Weber Test?
The Weber Test is an audiological clinical assessment developed by Ernst Heinrich Weber over a century ago. It is one of the most reliable audiological assessments since it has withstood the test of time and is still being used today in clinical methods. The test is designed to gauge a patient's hearing loss using a vibrating tuning fork to check for unilateral conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.
Unilateral conductive hearing loss is a type of hearing loss where the sound from the tuning fork lateralizes to the affected ear, which means the sound is louder in the affected ear. On the other hand, sensorineural hearing loss is where the sound does not lateralize to the affected ear; instead, the sound is heard louder than in the unaffected ear.
The Weber Test determines which part of the ear is related to the hearing loss. If the hearing loss is unilateral conductive, the affected parts of the ear are the outer and middle ears. If the hearing loss is sensorineural, the normal ear's affected part is the inner ear.
This test should only be conducted by audiologists and ENTs (Ear, Nose, and Throat doctors) since they are knowledgeable about the whole ear canal's anatomy, plus they know how to conduct this test and interpret the findings properly.
Printable Weber Test
Download this Weber Test to determine if your patient has unilateral conductive or unilateral sensorineural hearing loss first.
Printable Weber Test
Download this Weber Test to determine if your patient is dealing with unilateral conductive or sensorineural hearing loss.
How to conduct the Weber Test:
Before conducting the Weber Test, the healthcare professional must find a completely silent room as the venue for the test. They need to make sure that no sound from outside enters it. This test relies on hearing, so other sounds, even those from other rooms, may affect the sound louder than the test and results.
Another thing they need is a tuning fork, specifically a 512-hz tuning fork. Other tuning forks with different frequencies can be used, but the 512-hz one is the most commonly used tuning fork because it has a good balance of tone decay and tactile vibration.
Once the healthcare professional has a silent room and a 512-hz tuning fork ready, they need to have their patient sit down and do one of the following:
- Ask your patient which ear is affected.
- Hold the base of the tuning fork.
- Softly strike the tuning fork's tines on your elbow or knee to make it vibrate (don't strike it on a hard object because that may damage the fork and affect the tone).
- Place the tuning fork right in the middle of the patient's forehead or the vertex. Make sure that the fork is touching the skin.
- Ask the patient if the sound is louder in the left, right, or middle.
Their answer will let the healthcare professional know what's happening with the patient. Here are the possible results that they can get from this test:
- If the patient hears the sound right in the middle and the loudness is equal for both ears, they are fine! They have normal hearing. This is the ideal result.
- If the sound is louder in their affected ear, this indicates unilateral hearing loss (conductive hearing loss). If this is the case, then it's likely that the problem is in their middle ear, which might be caused by earwax blockage, an issue with the ossicles, or the accumulation of fluids.
- If the sound is louder in the unaffected or the better ear, this indicates sensorineural hearing loss. This means the problem is likely due to something concerning their inner ear or auditory nerve.
If the results point to either type of hearing loss, the next step is to conduct a comprehensive examination. This will include other audiological examinations, like the Rinne Tuning Fork Tests, Tympanometry, clearing earwax, and more.
Weber Test example:
Now that you know what the Weber Test is all about, how it is conducted, and how to interpret the results, we'd like you to know that we at Carepatron made a Weber Test PDF template for audiologists! This template has the instructions (to serve as reminders), tickboxes to designate what type of hearing loss the patient has, and an additional comments box for you to jot down your findings and whatever decisions you've made or will make for your patient, and your reasonings behind your choices.
If you like what you see and believe this is an excellent way to keep a record of your test results, feel free to download it from our platform! It's free. You can print it and fill it out with a pen or go paperless and engage with the Weber Test PDF template's editable components!
Download this Weber Test Example (Sample) here:
When is it best to conduct the Weber Test?
There are two appropriate times to use the Weber Test for your work. The most obvious is when a patient attends their consultation and complains about hearing loss, reduction, or muffling. It is also conducted alongside the Rinne Test, which uses a tuning fork to gauge the patient's hearing, but with a different method. So that you know, we also have a guide for the Rinne Test and a PDF template for it.
If the Weber Test is something you believe is necessary for your work, we highly recommend you check out our guide for the Rinne Test and use our template for that. Using that test should help you cover more ground regarding your patient's hearing.
Speaking of covering more ground, the Weber Test is often included as part of a comprehensive examination involving other tests. We already mentioned the Rinne Test, but other audiological examinations can be done to understand the patient's hearing loss better. One such examination would be tympanometry, which checks how well the middle ear works. This is an excellent follow-up to the Weber and Rinne Test if those tests determine that the problem is likely related to the center or right ear.
Who can conduct the Weber Test?
Since the Weber Test is a hearing loss assessment, this test should only be conducted by healthcare professionals who understand the ear anatomy and the functions of the outer and left ear, the front, middle, and inner ears. These healthcare professionals include:
- Audiologists - These healthcare professionals are highly trained in assessing and managing hearing and balance disorders, so they know how to conduct audiological examinations such as the Weber Test.
- ENTs - Ear, Nose, and Throat doctors are the same as audiologists in the sense that they, too, understand how ears work and how to manage and balance such disorders. The only difference is they can provide the necessary medication and even perform surgical procedures that may fix the ears (otoplasty).
- Hearing instrument specialists - If it is determined that hearing aids can help the patient with their hearing loss, these professionals can dispense and fit hearing aids to patients. Some hearing instrument specialists are trained in conducting essential hearing loss examinations, such as the Weber and Rinne Tests.
It is best to leave this test to the professionals above because they know how to conduct and interpret the Weber Test findings correctly.
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Why use Carepatron for audiology-related work?
If you are an audiologist, an ENT, or an adjacent healthcare professional, we recommend you explore our platform. You're bound to find something that'll tickle your fancy!
One of the things you will encounter on our platform is our library of resources. We have many guides about specific resources, such as worksheets, assessments, survey templates, progress note templates, and more! It even spans numerous healthcare fields, including audiology.
The great thing about our guides is that they will serve as quick refreshes for you and come with templates you can download for free, just like the Weber Test. If you're using our Weber Test PDF template, we recommend you check our guide for the Rinne Test. It also comes with a PDF template.
We also have a nifty storage system that allows our users to store their clinical documents HIPAA-compliantly! You can store filled-out copies with us if you downloaded our Weber Test template. Even if you keep it with us, we won't access it because it'll only be available for you and the people you granted access to (yes, you can set access permissions).
We recommend that you subscribe to us and pick a plan for your team of EMTs and audiologists so you can share results and keep your findings safe. If you lose your physical files, you can download them from the storage and print them again.
We at Carepatron are committed to helping healthcare professionals with their work, so take advantage of our platform so we can find ways to streamline your workflows and help you preserve your work. We're confident our features are cool and helpful enough that you'll consider us your number-one clinical documentation and general practice software.
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Commonly asked questions
Yes. Based on research by Siti Nazira Abdullah and her group in their paper entitled “Comparing the diagnostic accuracy of audiometric Weber test and tuning fork Weber test in patients with conductive hearing loss,” the Weber Test yielded an overall accuracy of 85.1%. The accuracy of the Weber Test is the reason why it has withstood the test of time over a century after its development.
Yes. The Weber Test can only assess what type of hearing loss the patient has. It doesn’t account for the severity of the hearing loss, that’s why other tests should be conducted alongside it to better determine the severity.
No. It’s a non-invasive test requiring a silent room and a tuning fork. The test doesn’t require the healthcare professional to do anything besides activating the tuning fork and checking which ear the patient hears the sound it emits the most.
