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Category: Project

Description: Many situations can induce dizziness in healthy participants, be it when riding a carrousel or when making head movements while wearing a head-mounted display. Everybody – maybe with the exception of vestibular loss patients - is prone to dizziness, albeit to widely varying degrees. Some people get dizzy after a single rotation around the body axis, others can perform multiple pirouettes without the slightest symptoms. We have developed a vestibular habituation training with the purpose to reduce proneness to dizziness. The training consists of a short (8 minutes) exercise routine that is moderate enough so that it can easily be integrated into a daily routine. 20 volunteers performed the training over the course of two weeks. We measured subjective dizziness before and after each daily session. We also performed several vestibular tests before (Pre-Test) and after (Post-Test) the two-week training period. They included exposure to a rotating and pitching visual environment while standing upright, as well as a physical rotation that was abruptly stopped. The results show that the dizziness induced during a given daily session decreased over the course of the two weeks. The dizziness induced by the rotating visual stimulus was significantly less after the completion of the training period as compared to the initial Pre-Test. Also, postural stability and Post-rotatory spinning sensations had improved when comparing the Post-Test to the Pre-Test. We conclude that a short regular vestibular training can significantly improve proneness to dizziness.