Quantification of vestibular perception during caloric test.

Background: It has been reported that factors such as age and vestibular pathology (i.e. vestibular migraine) could impact self-motion perception during vestibular stimulation. However, to our knowledge, no objective test has been developed to quantify self-motion perception during clinical vestibular evaluation.

Objective: The main objective of the present study was to quantify vestibular perception during caloric vestibular stimulation using a tachometer.

Methods: Twenty-two participants were divided into three groups: 1) younger healthy adults, 2) older healthy adults and 3) vestibular impaired adults. All participants performed bithermal water caloric irrigation during which slow-phase eye velocity (SPV) was measured using videonystagmography and self-motion velocity perception was assessed using a handheld tachometer (RPM).

Results: The results revealed a significant difference in SPV between vestibular impaired ears and both healthy groups, and a significant difference in self-motion velocity perception between healthy young and vestibular impaired participants.

Conclusions: This study suggest that the SPV similarly to self-motion perception (RPM) can differentiate between vestibular impaired and young healthy participants. Future work is required to assess the influence of self-motion perception in aging.