[Dizziness in the emergency room]

Abstract

The majority of patients who present to the Emergency Department with vertigo suffer from benign conditions. However, a few percent of these patients have life-threatening conditions, such as a cerebellar stroke. The HINTS clinical decision rule (Head-Impulse test, Nystagmus, Test-of-Skew) allows the physician to identify patients with an acute vestibular syndrome of central origin. HINTS is more sensitive than early magnetic resonance imaging. There is no role for computed tomography in the evaluation of patients with isolated acute vestibular syndrome in the Emergency Department. For patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, simple reposition maneuvers are effective for symptom relief.