Vestibular Findings in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Abstract

One hundred sixty-six youngsters (3 to 19 years of age) with severe-to-profound hearing impairments underwent vestibular evaluations with electronystagmography as part of a comprehensive medical and psychoeducational test battery. Twenty-two percent of the children had unilateral or bilateral labyrinthine weakness in response to caloric stimulation, and 21% demonstrated spontaneous or positional nystagmus. The tandem Romberg test was most predictive of those patients with caloric labyrinthine weakness. The performance of mental alerting tasks (using sign language when appropriate) by the patients during testing proved essential in overcoming a marked tendency toward central suppression of nystagmus.

Value of Vestibular Testing in Young Children With Sensorineural Hearing Loss

“…Published reports show that vestibular dysfunction is found in approximately 20% to 70% of children with hearing loss of different causes. [6][7][8][9][10] Furthermore, the prevalence of vestibular tests showing abnormalities is higher in profound than in severe SNHL, 8,9 in postnatally acquired cases (meningitis, labyrinthitis), 6,7,9 in some forms of syndromic deafness (Usher, Waardenburg, and Pendred syndromes), 6,10,11 and in children with labyrinthine dysplasia. 12 In contrast, recessive inherited deafness is usually associated with normal vestibular function.…”

“…18 There are descriptive case series of VOR measurements in healthy children, [14][15][16][17][18] in children with dizziness, 19 and in children with hearing impairment. [9][10][11][12]18 A panel of experts determined that vestibular testing by caloric or rotational stimulation is both safe and appropriate for diagnosing vestibular dysfunction in children. 20 Measurement of VOR provides only a limited assessment of the vestibular system.…”

Influencing Factors on the Vestibular Function of Deaf Children and Adolescents - Evaluation by Means of Dynamic Posturography

“…However, their 170 subjects were also profoundly hearing impaired; the quantitative differences in hearing loss were only slight [8].…”

“…This hypothesis is supported by studies which show that vestibular dysfunction has a high frequency (up to 80 %) in children with severe hearing impairment [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The methods used involved assessment of either postrotatory or caloric nystagmus.…”

“…Only the correlation between hearing loss and caloric testing was incorporated into certain studies, although no absolute correlation was found [8,10,11,13].…”