ABSTRACT
The aim of any assessment of hearing is to try to determine an individual’s hearing threshold and to aid in diagnosing the cause of any hearing loss. Pure tone audiometry remains the principal method of obtaining hearing thresholds, but an understanding of the range of hearing assessments that can be performed in the clinic is invaluable. The whisper test provides a useful, approximate, assessment of hearing loss that can be performed in any quiet environment. The main clinical tests that can be performed in the clinic or at the bedside are the ‘whisper test’ and tuning fork tests. In patients with no, hearing loss, the sound will be heard centrally, but in patients with an asymmetric sensorineural hearing loss, the sound will be heard in the better-hearing ear. Patients with nonorganic hearing loss will hear the louder sound in their ‘deaf’ ear, which will mask the quieter sound on their non-deaf side, so will say that they cannot hear anything.
