Persistent static imbalance among acute unilateral vestibulopathy patients could be related to a damaged velocity storage system

Abstract

Background: Acute unilateral vestibulopathy (AUV) is common but, the course of disease recovery is variable. Moreover, the final recovery status might vary between subjects. The remaining symptoms of these patients indicate the poor recovery of static imbalance, which could limit social activities and decrease their quality of life.

Objective: To determine the possible predictive parameters of prolonged static imbalance (PSI) among acute AUV, we compared several vestibular function test (VFT) results between control vestibulopathy (CV) and PSI patients.

Materials and methods: Subjects were divided into two groups: PSI and CV. PSI was determined by the observation of spontaneous nystagmus at 1 month after discharge from the hospital. VFT results taken during the initial symptoms were compared.

Results: Increased phase lead was observed in low-frequency stimulations (p < .05), while the other test results failed to reveal a significant difference. These results indicate that a larger phase lead, which is related to a decrease in the time constant, could be responsible for the delayed recovery of static imbalance.

Conclusion and significance: The phase lead was higher in the PSI group compared to the CV group, suggesting the possible role of phase as a parameter to predict the delayed compensation of static imbalance.

Chinese abstract

背景：急性单侧前庭病变（AUV）是常见的, 但该病的恢复过程多种多样。此外, 受试者的最终恢复状态各不相同。这些患者的其余症状表明, 静态失衡的恢复较差。这可能会限制其社交活动并降低其生活质量。

目的：为了确定急性AUV的长期静态失衡（PSI）的可能预测参数, 我们比较了控制性前庭病变（CV）和PSI患者的几种前庭功能测试（VFT）结果。

材料和方法：受试者被分为两组：PSI和CV。 PSI是通过在出院后1个月观察到自发性眼球震颤来确定的。比较初始症状期间的VFT结果。

结果：在低频刺激状态下观察到增加了的相位提高（p <.05）, 而其它测试结果未显示出显著差异。这些结果表明, 与时间常数减小有关的较大相位提高可能导致静态不平衡的延迟恢复。

结论和意义：与CV组相比, PSI组的相位超前较高, 表明相可能作为预测静态失衡延迟补偿的参数。

Keywords:

• Static imbalance
• acute unilateral vestibulopathy
• rotatory chair test
• phase lead

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea: HI15C1524.