[Drug treatment for vertigo]

The approach to drug treatment of vertigo is almost exclusively symptomatic. There are 3 major goals for drug treatment of vertigo: to eliminate the hallucination of motion, to reduce the accompanying neurovegetative and psychoaffective signs (nausea, vomiting, anxiety), and to enhance the process of "vestibular compensation" to allow the brain to find a new sensory equilibrium in spite of the vestibular lesion. Three different types of vertigo drug treatment must be distinguished: the treatment of acute vertigo attacks, the treatment of chronic vertigo, and the treatment of patients with Menière's disease to avoid vertigo attacks. Furthermore, this paper deals with the treatment of motion sickness and of the postoperative nausea and vomiting.