Determination of Muscles of Head Acting in Whistling

Authors

  • S Nalini

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37506/ijop.v7i2.176

Keywords:

Whistling, Facial nerve, Hypoglossal nerve, blow air test.

Abstract

Background

Whistling without using a whistle or fingers considered as a manly skill in our patriarchal society is taught as a means of testing for integrity of facial muscles and Facial nerve for UG students in I MBBS under clinical examination of VII cranial nerve. But this test has been mentioned only in a very few books of clinical examination. This fact raised the need for this study

Aims and Objectives

To determine percentage of population who can whistle, muscles of head involved in whistling & gender variation

Study Design

A descriptive, cross sectional study by convenient sampling method conducted among 200 UG MBBS students of age group 18–25 of GTMC.

Results

80% of participants were able to whistle; Whistling is not a manly skill. An element of social inhibition is there in women to whistle; 90.5% of subjects used muscles innervated by both Facial nerve and Hypoglossal nerves simultaneously.

Conclusion

There is subtle knowledge gap between clinicians and non-clinicians probably due to lack of need to update for the later which will become evident to students when they enter clinical side. Hence we, teachers too need to refer clinical subject text books and clinical examination manuals to accept, ignore and criticise as appropriate.

Author Biography

  • S Nalini

    Nalini S*

    Associate Professor, Government Theni Medical College, Tamilnadu, India

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Published

2019-07-20

How to Cite

Determination of Muscles of Head Acting in Whistling. (2019). International Journal of Physiology, 7(2), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.37506/ijop.v7i2.176