OBJECTIVE
The visual system is an integral part of the balance system. However a specific visual disorder causing dizziness and headache has not been described in the otolaryngology literature. Vertical Heterophoria (VH) is a binocular vision disorder with symptoms of headache, dizziness, anxiety, neck pain and reading difficulties, treatable with prismatic lenses. The study’s objective was to quantify dizziness and associated symptom reduction after prismatic lens treatment in patients with a chief complaint of dizziness concomitantly diagnosed with VH.
RESULTS
Treatment effects were analyzed using paired t-tests. Following prismatic lens treatment, there was a
- 50 % decrease in DHI score (p<0.0001);
- 46.9% reduction in HDI score (p<0.0001);
- 19.9% reduction in Zung score (p=0.0036);
- 49.4% reduction in VHSQ score (p<0.0001); and a
- 70.2% reduction in overall symptoms as measured by the 10 cm visual analog scale (p<0.0001).
There was also a reduction in the 0-10 scores for
- Headache (60.4%; p<0.0001),
- Dizziness (64.1%; p<0.0001),
- Anxiety (57.8%; p<0.0001);
Additionally
- The two VHSQ headache questions (44.1%; p=0.0269),
- Six VHSQ dizziness questions (54.5%; p<0.0001),
- Three VHSQ anxiety questions (50.2%; p=0.0036) (see Figure 1 in the full research paper).
