Compensation mechanisms after acute peripheral disorders of the labyrinth as a function of age.

Nowadays opinions on the complexity of the central vestibular compensation mechanisms are still divergent, but it is correct to believe that biochemical and morphological changes appearing in various sites of the central nervous system during aging have a negative reflection on the integrity of such a process. The present paper is a clinical-descriptive study on 26 patients affected with a sudden loss of the vestibular function, examined at the ENT Department at the University of Padua, from 1981 to 1983. The study's results are reported, and several problems connected to the interference of the aging process on the mechanism of vestibular compensation are examined.