gms | German Medical Science

Head impulse testing (HIT) has become an internationally accepted and very helpful clinical tool for fast and easy diagnostic testing of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). However, there is still a problem concerning apparative testing and documentation of objective parameters in clinical practice. Since HIT investigates the ability to stabilize gaze in space or on a visual target during fast head impulses, visual loss during head impulses is a reasonable mean to investigate the function of the VOR as has been shown in several studies. The first DVA study by Longridge & Mallinson in 1987 was already published before the HIT was published by Halmagyi and Curthoys (1988). Since then about 17 studies about DVA have been published. Nevertheless we were able to significantly improve the method and reduce the number of head impulses needed, enabling VOR testing in every medical office comparable to pure tone audiometry for investigation of hearing. The method is very similar to the results of HIT measured by search coil technique, which is the actual gold standard. The presentation gives an overview on previous DVA studies and outlines our recent improvements.