Difficulties Encountered During Vestibular Testing of Pediatric Patients (Aged 6-12 Years)

Aim: To assess difficulty level of different vestibular tests as encountered during testing pediatric population.Study Design: Case-control.Material and Methods: This study comprised of 65 children, however, ten children refused to continue vestibular testing and were excluded. The remaining 55 children were divided into 2 groups: The study group consists of 40 children selected from the Audiology Unit, Kasr El-Eini Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University Hospital, who complained of dizziness, within age group 6-12 years. The control group comprised 15 healthy children, their ages sex match the study group. The study was conducted over two years from January 2010 till December 2011. All patients were subjected to good history taking, basic audiological evaluation, video-nystagmoghraphy, sensory organization test, rotary chair, and vestibular evoked myogenic potentials. Difficulty level of different tests as faced by children and observed by the examiner was assessed.Results: Migranous vertigo was the most common cause we found among our cases, followed by general diseases, ocular diseases, and otitis media with effusion. Other causes like vestibular neuritis, head trauma, and perilymphatic fistula were less common. SOT was the most difficult test among all patients especially in younger children. Caloric test came second most difficult test. Rotary chair was the easiest yet didn’t give informative data as most children had compensated vestibular disorders.Conclusion: SOT and caloric testing were the most difficult especially younger children, yet both are important in assessment of dizzy child. Rotary chair was easily performed, but it is only informative in early stages of vestibular disorders, as the disease becomes chronic, it doesn’t give so much data. VEMP was easy to perform yet its results were not specific. Positional test was the easiest test done.