Dizziness: relating the severity of vertigo to the degree of handicap by measuring vestibular impairment.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to correlate the severity of vertigo and handicap in patients with vestibular pathology according to measures of impairment.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We conducted a prospective assessment of patients with dizziness by means of caloric, rotatory test, and computerized dynamic posturography to estimate impairment. Handicap and severity of vertigo were determined with specific questionnaires (Dizziness Handicap Inventory and UCLA-DQ).

RESULTS

A fair relationship were found between severity of dizziness and vestibular handicap. When impairment was taken into consideration, values were still fair and only moderate for a group of patients with an abnormal caloric test as the only pathologic finding. The composite score from the sensory organization test portion of the computerized dynamic posturography is fairly correlated to severity of vertigo and handicap in the whole population of patients, but no correlation was found when they were assigned to groups of vestibular impairment.

CONCLUSION

To assess vestibular impairment, the results from several tests must be taken into account. However, vestibular handicap is not solely explained with measurements of impairment and/or severity.