Week 8 Flashcards
What does the vestibular system include?
The parts of the inner ear and brain that process the sensory information involved with controlling balance and eye movements
What can result if any part of the vestibular system is impaired?
Dizziness, imbalance, and disability can result
What is Vestibular rehabilitation (VR), or vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT)?
A specialized form of therapy intended to alleviate both the primary and secondary problems caused by vestibular disorders. It is an exercise-based program primarily designed to reduce vertigo and dizziness, gaze instability,
and/or imbalance and falls.
What are the potential peripheral causes for dizziness?
• Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) • Vestibular Neuritis • Labyrinthitis • Meniere’s Disease • Acoustic (vestibular) neuroma • Superior Canal Dehiscence or Fistula
What are the potential central causes for dizziness?
- Brainstem or Cerebellar Stroke
- Concussion
- TBI/DAI
- Migraine
What are the potential other causes for dizziness?
- Cervicogenic, orthostatic hypotension
- Vertebral artery insufficiency
- B12 insufficiency
- Hypo- glycemia
- Psychiatric
What are the components of a patient history to gather to determine cause of vestibular dysfunction?
1) Tempo
2) Symptoms
3) Circumstance
What are the components of the tempo that we want to gather in a patient’s history in order to determine the cause of vestibular dysfunction?
- Acute (3 days or less)
- Chronic (more than 3 days)
- Spells or episodes (seconds, minutes, hours)
What are the possible symptoms of a vestibular dysfunction that a patient can present with?
- Vertigo
- Disequilibrium
- Nausea and Vomiting
- Lightheadedness
- Motion Sickness
- Oscillopsia
- Rocking or Swaying as if on a Ship
- Visual Motion Sensitivity
What are some non-vestibular symptoms that a patient with a vestibular dysfunction may experience?
- Visual Changes
- Hearing Changes
- Feeling “off”/floating sensation/can’t describe
What is vertigo?
Illusion of movement of the self or environment (ie. Spinning) due to sudden imbalance of neural activity. Can occur with normal head movements or lesions than cause loss of vestibular function
What is disequilibrium?
Imbalance or unsteadiness while standing or walking, caused by a variety of factors (visual disturbance, vestibular function loss, or proprioception deficits)
What causes nausea and vomiting in vestibular dysfunction?
Due to stimulation of the vagus centers in the medulla, varies
depending on area of impairment
What is lightheadedness?
Feeling faint or like passing out, usually related to momentarily decreased blood flow to the brain (ie. Hypotension). Patients with anxiety or depression may use this to describe their dizziness
What is motion sickness?
Episodic dizziness, fatigue, pallor, diaphoresis, nausea and
occasionally vomiting induced by passive locomotion while standing/sitting still. Believed to be caused by mismatch of visual and vestibular cues
What is oscillopsia?
Subjective illusion of visual motion, object bouncing in visual field (like a bad video recording), usually caused by bilateral vestibular loss
When does rocking or swaying as if on a ship occur?
Frequently occurs for a few days after a prolonged sea or air voyage (ie. Mal de debarquement syndrome)
What is visual motion sensitivity?
Dizziness provoked by full field repetitive or moving visual environments or visual patterns (such as watching a train pass
or walking on a patterned carpet), usually occurs with central vestibular dysfunction
What are the presentations of the visual changes that could be a symptom for a vestibular dysfunction patient?
Blurry vision, double vision, light sensitivity
What are the presentations of the hearing changes that could be a symptom for a vestibular dysfunction patient?
Loss of hearing, difficulty hearing, fullness in the ear, sensitive to sound
What are the presentations of the feeling “off”/floating sensation/can’t describe that could be a symptom for a vestibular dysfunction patient?
Usually (not always) associated with cervicogenic dizziness or
underlying psychologic mechanism
What are the “circumstance” portion of the patient history to gather when assessing for a vestibular dysfunction?
Dizziness may be provoked only by certain movements or situations:
• Standing up after prolonged lying down
• Lying down, sitting up, turning in bed
• Bending over, looking up
• Exertion
Spontaneous:
• With or without movement, or patient cannot explain
What are the other helpful elements to gather in a patient history when assessing for a vestibular dysfunction?
- Fall history (how, when)
- How the dizziness affects the patient’s life
- Are certain movements or situations avoided
- What the patient believes is causing the dizziness
- Headaches/Migraines
- Neck pain or other joint pain
- Medications (dizziness can be a side effect)
Usually, when a patient presents with “Room spins when turning in bed”, what is their diagnoses?
BPPV
Usually, when a patient presents with “Feeling “off” with negative vestibular signs”, what is their diagnoses?
Cervicogenic dizziness
Usually, when a patient presents with “Oscillopsia/constant imbalance”, what is their diagnoses?
Bilateral Vestibular hypofunction
Usually, when a patient presents with “Turning head or turning around in standing”, what is their diagnoses?
Unilateral Vestibular hypofunction
Usually, when a patient presents with dizziness when “Standing up first thing in the morning”, what is their diagnoses?
Orthostatic hypotension
Usually, when a patient presents with “Visual motion sensitivity”, what is their diagnoses?
Concussion/TBI or other central dysfunction
What are the test done for peripheral vestibular dysfunction and under what conditions?
- Spontaneous Nystagmus (acute) (goggles)
- Gaze-Evoked Nystagmus (goggles)
- Head Shaking Nystagmus (goggles)
- Head Thrust (ambient light)
- Dynamic Visual Acuity (DVA) (ambient light)
- Dix-Hallpike and Roll Test (for BPPV) (goggles)
- Valsalva (goggles)
What are the test done for central vestibular dysfunction under what conditions?
- Spontaneous Nystagmus (ambient light or goggles)
- Smooth Pursuit (within oculomotor exam) (ambient light)
- Saccadic Eye Movement (within oculomotor exam) (ambient light)
- Vergence (within oculomotor exam) (ambient light)
- Dynamic Visual Acuity (DVA) (ambient light)
- VOR Cancellation (ambient light)
In what conditions are vestibular dysfunction clinical exams done?
- Some test are done in ambient light (which means current available light such as natural outdoor light or room lights) during which patients have the ability to fixate their eyes if needed (visual fixation)
- Other tests require the use of Frenzel lenses (blurred vision) or video infrared goggles (complete dark), during which the patient does not have the ability to fixate their eyes (fixation removed)
What are we looking for during the spontaneous nystagmus test?
- Look for abnormal eye beating in room light
- Also look for eye beating with goggles on (if available)
- Nystagmus has a fast phase and slow phase. Try to identify the direction of the “fast phase”
- Nystagmus can be up-beating, down-beating, left beating, right beating, and/or torsional
If nystagmus is observed in ambient light, what is it looked at in conjunction with?
- Abnormal smooth pursuit
- Abnormal saccadic eye motion
- Abnormal VOR cancellation
What is the interpretation of spontaneous nystagmus observed in ambient light when in conjunction with other test?
- Patient may have a known neurologic condition that the clinician is aware of. OR - Patient presents with central vestibular signs and needs to be referred to MD
What is the interpretation of spontaneous nystagmus observed in goggles?
- Patient may have an acute (not yet compensated by the central nervous system) peripheral hypofunction
OR - Patient has central presents
with central vestibular sign and needs to be referred to MD
How is the smooth pursuit and convergence test assessed?
- Assessed during oculomotor exam; ambient light
- Ask the patient to follow finger
- Notice if the eye movement is smooth or “interrupted”
- Notice if both eyes converge and at what distance the patient reports double vision
What is the interpretation of the smooth pursuit and convergence test?
• Normal = smooth eye movements with minimal to no symptoms reported by patient
• Abnormal = delays or “saccadic intrusions” interrupting smooth eye
movement
• Abnormal = patient reports double vision greater than 3-4 inches from nose
• Possible central vestibular dysfunction
How is the saccadic eye movement test done?
- Therapist sits in front of patient approx 18 inches away, holding patient’s head stable
- Patient asked to look back and forth from 2 targets (ie finger and therapist nose) right/left, up/down
- Note if the eyes hit the target in 1 movement, multiple movements, or overshooting/under-shooting
What is the interpretation of the saccadic eye movement test?
- Normal = eyes hit the target in 1-2 movements with minimal to no symptoms reported by patient
- Abnormal = multiple eye movements to get to target, under or overshooting target
- Possible central vestibular dysfunction
How is the VOR Cancellation done?
- Visual fixation in room light; patient is sitting with eyes on a target (arms extended in front of nose with eyes on thumbnail)
- Have the patient place one arm extended with thumb up
- Patient asked to rotate their arm and trunk LEFT and RIGHT
- Patient’s head rotates with the trunk so that their NOSE and EYES remain on their thumb
- REPEAT with VERTICAL head motions
What is the interpretation of the VOR Cancellation test?
- Remember… the VOR is the ability of the eyes to move equal and opposite to head motion, to keep the image stable on the retina (aka gaze stabilization)
- Therefore… VOR cancellation is the ability to “cancel” the VOR and move the eyes together with the head
- Normal = head and eyes move together with minimal to no symptoms reported by the patient
- Abnormal = inability of eyes to stay on target, dizziness or other symptoms reported by patient
- Possible central vestibular dysfunction
How is the gaze-evoked nystagmus test done?
- Fixation is blocked (goggles on); ask patient to move eyes to the left, right, up, down, and back to center
- Observe nystagmus when patient holds each direction
- Do not go to end range as end range nystagmus could be normal; just need 30 degrees
What is the interpretation of the gaze-evoked nystagmus test?
Nystagmus from a PERIPHERAL lesion follows Alexander’s Law
• Direction FIXED nystagmus (eyes will beat in the same direction no matter which way patient looks)
Nystagmus from a CENTRAL lesion does not follow Alexander’s Law
• Direction CHANGING nystagmus (eyes might beat up when the patient looks up, beat down when looks down, etc)
How is the head shaking nystagmus test done?
- Fixation blocked (goggles on)
- Hold the patients head at about 30 degrees of cervical flexion
- Patient closes eyes, assist turning head right/left for 20 reps, asking patient to open eyes after 18 reps
- After 20 reps, head held stable, observe if nystagmus is present
What is the interpretation of the head shaking nystagmus test?
- Positive finding = nystagmus beats towards the intact neural side
- Fast phase towards intact/more active neural side (contralateral side has hypofunction)
- Usually will coincide with positive head thrust test and patient history for unilateral hypofunction
How is the head thrust test done?
- Visual fixation (room light); ask patient to fixate eyes on a target (ie. therapist nose)
- Hold patients head in about 30 degrees of cervical flexion
- Quickly rotate patient’s head about 30 degrees, while eyes try to remain on target
- Repeat to right and left in random order, pausing after each time
What is the interpretation of the head thrust test?
- Eyes will move off target, delay in returning to target
- Positive finding = delay will occur on impaired side
- Unilateral or Bilateral Peripheral hypofunction
How is the Dynamic Visual Acuity (DVA test) done?
• Patients sits approx 4 feet from chart
• Ask patient to read the lowest
line they can see clearly, without squinting or leaning
forward
• Manually move patient’s head quickly side to side at speed of 2HZ or 120 beats/min, AS THEY READ FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
• Note the difference between the static (head stable) line and dynamic (head moving) line
What is the interpretation of the Dynamic Visual Acuity (DVA test)?
Testing the Vestibulo-ocular reflex… the ability of the eyes to stabilize a target while the head moves
• 2 or less line difference = normal
• 3 lines or greater = abnormal
• Decreased Vestibulo-ocular reflex
• Possible peripheral hypofunction
• Possible underlying central dysfunction
What is Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
A peripheral vestibular disorder, where the otoconia becomes dislodged from the utricle and enter the semicircular canals disrupting the: Vestibular ocular reflex (VOR).
What is the key symptom of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) and why?
Vertigo, caused by the incorrect reflexive repositioning of the eyes
What is key in Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
The otoconia only disrupt fluid mechanics during movement, therefore symptoms of vertigo should only occur during movement and resolve quickly
What are the expected subjective history symptoms of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
- Type of Dizziness: TRUE VERTIGO
- Circumstance: With sudden head movements
- Duration: Lasting less than 1-2 minutes
What is the overall goal of a Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) exam?
To rule in the involved semicircular canal.
Remember: if you expect BPPV from a subjective history, do NOT perform other vestibular or ocular motor tests first – BPPV can cause you to have inaccurate findings
Why should a patient refrain from taking Meclizine 24 hours prior to a Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) examination?
• MECLIZINE is a prescription drug (Antihistamine) that suppresses the vestibular ocular reflex in an attempt to reduce vertigo symptoms
*Many physicians (especially ED physicians) will prescribe Meclizine for people who have vertigo
• Correct BPPV diagnosis is dependent on visualizing the correct nystagmus
What are the clinical exams done for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
• Begin with clearing the cervical spine to insure that the exam will be safe for the patient
1. Vertebral Artery Test
2. For Suspected Trauma – Sharp Purser + Alar Ligament
• Follow with the recommended positional testing for each
semicircular canal while assessing for: nystagmus AND subjective vertigo
What is the goals for a Vertebral Artery Test?
Induce compression of the vertebral arteries
How is the vertebral artery test done?
- Place the neck in full extension and rotation
- Hold for 30 seconds
- Repeat opposite side
• Looking for cranial nerve involvement!
What is the goal for positional testing for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
After clearing the neck we can use positional testing to rule in or rule out semicircular canal involvement
What are the positional testing done for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)?
- Dix-Hallpike (Posterior and Anterior Canals)
2. Horizontal Roll Test (Horizontal Canals)