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. 2014 Apr;124(4):969-73.
doi: 10.1002/lary.24285. Epub 2014 Jan 15.

Motion sensitivity and caloric responsiveness in vestibular migraine and Meniere's disease

Affiliations

Motion sensitivity and caloric responsiveness in vestibular migraine and Meniere's disease

Jeffrey D Sharon et al. Laryngoscope. 2014 Apr.

Abstract

Objectives/hypothesis: We examined whether scores on a motion sensitivity questionnaire (MSQ) could distinguish between vestibular migraine (VM) and Meniere's disease (MD). As a secondary goal, we examined whether scores on the MSQ correlated with results from caloric testing.

Study design: This study administered a telephone questionnaire to subjects who met clinical criteria for vestibular migraine, Meniere's disease, and controls.

Methods: A MSQ was administered to 20 subjects meeting American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO) criteria for MD, 30 subjects meeting Neuhauser criteria for both probable vestibular migraine (pVM) and definite vestibular migraine (dVM), and 22 controls.

Results: The average score on the MSQ was 5.9 for VM, 4.25 for MD, and 0.4 for controls. Both the VM and MD scored significantly higher than the controls (P = 0.0001), but results were not statistically different from each other (P = 0.17). However, the average score for subjects with dVM was 7.1, which was significantly higher than subjects with pVM whose average score was 4.2 (P = 0.045) and higher than subjects with MD (P = 0.048). When each question of the MSQ was analyzed, motion sensitivity to riding in a car was found to be significantly different between VM (average score 1.1) and MD (average score 0.5), with P value of 0.048. Scores of MSQ did not correlate with the total eye speed (TES) on caloric testing.

Conclusions: Subjects with VM and MD had elevated levels of motion sensitivity compared to controls. Subjects with VM had more motion sensitivity to riding in a car than those with MD, but their TES was not different.

Level of evidence: 3b.

Keywords: Meniere's disease; caloric testing; motion sensitivity; motion sensitivity questionnaire; motion sickness; total eye speed; vestibular migraine; vestibular testing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: none (for both authors)

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Total score on the motion sensitivity questionnaire. From left to right: definite vestibular migraine, probable vestibular migraine, Meniere's disease, and normal controls. Middle quartiles represented by box, with line representing mean. Maximum and minimum values represented by lines above and below box.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Total eye speed on caloric testing. From left to right: definite vestibular migraine, probable vestibular migraine, Meniere's disease, and normal controls. Middle quartiles represented by box, with line representing mean. Maximum and minimum values represented by lines above and below box.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Motion sensitivity score versus total eye speed. Migraine, open circles; Meniere's, gray triangles; normal controls, black squares.

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