Tuning forks in the medical profession?

[Jason Kanter]

I don't know much about this, but it seems to have to do with reflex
testing. Here's a quote from a medical supply site:

> Medical tuning forks use the same frequency scale as the scientific forks but
> are larger and heavier for clinical work involving hearing, testing for nerve
> degeneration, proprioreception, etc.
...
> The Gardiner brown set includes 6 forks and is designed for testing for
> peripheral nerve damage.
...


|| ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || |||
jason kanter * piano tuning * piano teaching
bellevue, wa * 425 562 4127 * cell 425 831 1561
orcas island * 360 376 2799
|| ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || ||| || |||


> From: "Ken Jankura" <kenrpt@earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 21:34:09 -0500
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Subject: Re: Tuning forks in the medical profession?
> 
> First off, you should probably ask a medical student there. You got the
> wrong group of Rube Goldbergs here. But here's a kind of guess (I did pick
> up a bunch of random info having a doctor for a father-in-law for 20 years).
> They are used to check hearing (crude method) through bone conduction. That
> is, a diagnosis that differentiates between what you hear through conduction
> and what you hear through sound waves in the air.
> Ken Jankura
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Goodale" <rrg@unlv.edu>
> To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 9:11 PM
> Subject: Tuning forks in the medical profession?
> 
> 
>> Being a university tech I sometimes wonder down to the union for lunch.
>> Today I took a detour and browsed the book store for a moment.  Having
>> a large medical program the book store stocks an inventory of supplies
>> for med students labs and classes.  In the display were stethoscopes,
>> forceps, kits for student nurses, sphygmomanometers, and so on.  Along
>> with this were tuning forks!  Huge ones, (very low frequency), with
>> sliding adjustable weights on the tines to adjust the pitch. There were
>> two different sizes and the label proudly announced them as "highly
>> accurate for the medical profession".
>> 
>> I would find it hard to believe that these are used for testing hearing
>> since the objective of a university it to teach techniques using current
>> and modern equipment.  So what would one use a tuning fork for if one
>> were studying modern medicine?  Perhaps to scan a patient's credit for
>> paying the bill?
>> 
>> Rob Goodale, RPT
>> Las Vegas, NV
>> 
>> 
>