Using the video head impulse test in healthy Danish adolescents

Abstract

Purpose: Adolescents presenting with vertigo can be a diagnostic challenge. Video head impulse testing (vHIT) offers examination of the semicircular canals in adolescents with few drawbacks. It quantifies the vestibular ocular reflex as a gain-value. However, there is no standardized method to calculate the gain-value. The aim of this article is to define which gain measure is the most optimal and whether the test is clinically tolerable and feasible in diagnostics of adolescents.

Methods: Thrity-three Danish healthy adolescents aged 13–16 years, had their lateral semicircular canals examined with vHIT. Gain calculations were obtained at 40, 60, 80, 0–100 ms and as a regression gain.

Results: Mean gain values for the right side were: 40 ms: 1.04, 60 ms: 0.98, 80 ms: 0.93, 0–100 ms: 1.08 and regression: 1.04. For the left-side gain values were 40 ms: 0.96, 60 ms: 0.96, 80 ms: 0.98, 0–100 ms: 1.00 and regression: 1.01. T-tests on 60 ms, 0–100 ms and regressions gain showed that 60 ms differed significantly from 0 to100 ms and regression gain. No complaints of discomfort were reported by any of the test subjects.

Conclusions: vHIT proved to be a highly applicable procedure with many advantages, but also some potential pitfalls. In healthy adolescents, 0–100 ms and regression gain produce the most reliable results.

Keywords:

• Vertigo
• vHIT
• adolescents
• dizziness

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants/parents included in the study.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.