A Pilot Investigation on Interventions for Dizziness in Patients with Vestibular Migraine

Do you and your care team see patients with vestibular migraine? If so, you may be interested in a recently released (online ahead of print publication) article by Kolberg and colleagues (2023) comparing the long-term (approximately one year) effects of three interventions on the Dizziness Handicap Inventory (Jacobson and Newman, 1990).

These investigators recruited 23 patients who had been diagnosed with vestibular migraine and been provided with information on lifestyle modifications (Roberts et al, 2021). Some of the participants were also prescribed medications. Participants were categorized into three groups based upon their intervention: (1) lifestyle modifications only (n=8), (2) lifestyle modifications plus rescue medications (n=6), and (3) lifestyle modifications plus preventative medications (n=9).

The authors concluded that the group who received the rescue medications had the best outcomes followed by the group given only lifestyle modifications. The authors did, however, caution that this was a pilot study with limitations.

Interested readers are encouraged to access the full article here.

References

Jacobson G, Newman C. (1990) The development of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 116(4):424–427.

Kolberg C, Roberts R, Watford K, Picou E, Corcoran K. (2023) Long-term effects of intervention on vestibular migraine: a preliminary study. Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol.

Roberts R, Watford K, Picou E, Hatton K, Trone T, Brignola Y. (2021) Effects of lifestyle modification on vestibular migraine. Otol Neurotol. 42(10):e1537-e1543.