Diagnosis of acute unilateral vestibular deficit by virtual reality

The aim of our study was to establish a new diagnostic approach, through the use of virtual reality, to the study of the subjective vertical bar in unilateral peripheral vestibular dysfunction. We subjected 174 patients with unilateral peripheral vestibular dysfunction (ages 18-82 years) to vestibular diagnosis with the virtual reality system. We changed the classic configuration of the subjective visual vertical into a subjective visual horizontal bar. This technique revealed values of the subjective visual horizontal outside the normal range in 91% of patients.