"Can A Prescribed Walking Program With or Without Monitoring Impact Dizziness in the Older Adults?"

Study Summary

Dizziness is a common complaint reported by 30% of people above 65 years of age and by more than 50% of those 90 years of age and older.(1) Age-related decline in vestibular, musculoskeletal, and neurologic performances compounded by a vestibular pathology can result to debilitating physical and psychological consequences. Dizziness is associated with falls,(2) disability (3) and physical inactivity.(4) Walking for endurance is cited as one of the components of vestibular rehabilitation (VR) in the "Clinical Practice Guideline for Peripheral Vestibular Hypofunction".(5) Although walking can offset the avoidance of physical activity from symptom provocation, no direct evidence has been found to support the effect of walking on postural and dynamic stability, function, and participation in people with dizziness. The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of walking as an exercise component of VR on both primary and secondary vestibular-specific outcome measures. The primary outcomes are mCTSIB, TUG test, DGI, and DHI, while the secondary outcomes are the total number of visits and length of interventions (in weeks). The second purpose is to evaluate whether pedometers increase the adherence of older adults with vestibular issues to a walking program. This will be measured by change in physical activity, as represented by International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) Walking Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET)-minutes/week and IPAQ Total Physical Activity MET-minutes/week scores from the IPAQ short form during the episode of care (admission and discharge) and on four-weeks follow-up compared to those patients who only received instructions to walk without a pedometer. The third purpose of this study is to establish test-retest reliability of the TUG test on older adults with dizziness. Lastly, the fourth purpose of this study to investigate if the TUG, DGI, and mCTSIB are significant and strong predictors of the DHI in older adults with dizzines

Primary Outcome

The mCTSIB quantifies the ability of the patient to use information from somatosensory, visual and vestibular system effectively for postural stability. This test eliminated conditions 3 and 6 of the original CTSIB, which use an altered visual input (visual conflict dome). It is performed with the feet together, a modification from the original test, which is with feet apart.(7) The four conditions of mCTSIB are standing on firm surface eyes open, standing on firm surface eyes closed, standing o

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL VRWP Group
• BEHAVIORAL VRW Group

Study Locations (2)