Evaluation of office balance tests

Abstract EN

Balance tests may give valuable information that sometimes can be of help.

Of these tests we evaluated five to study their sensitivity, specificity and correlation with electronystagmographic (ENG) results.

These tests are; head shaking test (HST), Unterberger (UT) or Fukuda stepping test (FST), Dix-Hallpike test (DHT), Romberg's test (RT) and Tandem gait test (TGT).

We found that HST has low sensitivity and high specificity while UT has high sensitivity and low specificity.

Dix-Hallpike test is both sensitive and specific for diagnosing benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).

Romberg's and TGT tests are positive only in acute vestibular loss and neurological dysfunction.

Correlation with ENG results was done and described.

We concluded that HST is a goodbed-side test in screening forunilateralvestibularhypofunction yet, it is better done using ENG tracing.

Dix-Hallpike test is the most sensitive test in diagnosing BPPV without the need for ENG.

Unterberger test had 86% sensitivity and 18% specificity.

It is a good screening test and it correlates positively with ENG results.

Romberg's test and TGT were good screening tests for acute vestibular loss and neurological dysfunction but don't correlates with the ENG results