EPIDEMIOLOGY OF VERTIGO IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Abstract

Introduction: Vertigo is defined as “an illusion of self-rotatory motion or object rotatory motion”. A careful history and physical examination usually helps to separate true vertigo from the dizziness of the anxious patient and the other types of pseudo vertigo. The epidemiological factors responsible for the symptom of vertigo, may be of great help in identifying correct aetiology and offer effective treatment, thereby reducing the cost of evaluation Aim: To Determine the Epidemiological profile of patients, primarily presenting with symptom of Vertigo Materials and Methods: It’s a descriptive study, All patients attending Medicine and ENT out-patient departments of PIMS with complaints of dizziness during study period i.e Nov 2019- October 2021. Sample size was 160. All Adult patients (>18 years) identified as a case of true Vertigo and who were willing to give consent to participate in the study. The data were entered in Microsoft excel spread sheet and analysed using SPSS version 21. Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro Wilks test were used to analyse the normality of the data. Results: Most common age group affected was 39 to 58 - 44.9% and majority were males. Severity of vertigo at baseline was mild (14 %), moderate (52%), severe (43%). MRI brain showed cerebellar infarcts in 6 patients (66.6%) and pontine infarct in 1(11.1%) patient and medullary infarcts in 2 (22%) ( done in where ever indicated and not all cases). The magnitude of symptom reduction in vertigo after medical therapy was 69.77 (mean value)  in central vertigo and   70  (mean value )  in peripheral vertigo Conclusion: Proper history taking especially duration of vertigo, number of episodes, trigger situations, initial VVAS, physical examination, antivertiginous medications, special clinical tests like Head impulse test,Nystagmus,Test of Skew, Dix hallpike ’s test are, suffice and cost effective in evaluation of Vertigo.