Evidence for the Efficacy of In-Hospital Group Vestibular Rehabilitation Treatment in Patients with Intractable Dizziness

Objective: In 1996, we developed an in-hospital vestibular-rehabilitation program based on the Cawthorne and Cooksey program for patients with intractable dizziness and have since reported improvements of the quality of life (QOL) of these patients after the treatment. The present study was designed to show the benefit of this program with respect to the physical and emotional aspects of such patients. Methods: The subjects were 161 patients with intractable dizziness and all were informed that hospitalization was a prerequisite for participation in our program. Patients underwent a number of assessment instruments on the first day of the study, including the State-trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI); Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS); Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI); and the Profile of Mood States Brief Japanese Version (POMS) to respectively evaluate the subjects' state of anxiety, degree of depression, physical and emotional and functional handicap with dizziness, and profile of mood states. The Short Form Health Survey (SF-8) was used to evaluate the subjects' QOL. In addition, posturography was used to evaluate the length of locus, which indicate gross physical stability. All tests were performed again after 4 weeks of treatment.Results: Significant improvements were seen in all investigation items (STAI, SDS, DHI, POMS, the length of locus, and SF-8 scores) improved after the treatment (p<0.05).Conclusion: Improvement in the physical as well as emotional aspects of intractable dizziness patients was achieved by our vestibular rehabilitation program, which included the combination of physical rehabilitation and in-group therapy. The results strongly suggest that our rehabilitation program could improve not only the physical aspect of patients with intractable dizziness, but could also achieve improvements in their psychological aspect.