Quantitative assessment of self-treated canalith repositioning procedures using inertial measurement unit sensors

Low success and high recurrence of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) after home-based self-treated Epley and Barbeque (BBQ) roll maneuvers is an important issue.

To quantify the cause of low success rate of self-treated Epley and BBQ roll maneuvers and provide a clinically acceptable criterion to guide self-treatment head rotations.

Twenty-five participants without active BPPV wore a custom head-mount rotation monitoring device for objective measurements. Self-treatment and specialist-assisted maneuvers were compared for head rotation accuracy. Absolute differences between the head rotation evaluation criteria (American Academy of Otolaryngology guidelines) and measured rotation angles were considered as errors. Self-treatment and specialist-treated errors in maneuvers were compared. Between-trial variations and age effects were evaluated.

A significantly large error and between-trial variation occurred in step 4 of the self-treated Epley maneuver, with a considerable error in the second trial. The cumulative error of all steps of self-treated BBQ roll maneuver was significantly large. Age effect occurred only in the self-treated BBQ roll maneuver. Errors in specialist-treated maneuvers ranged from 10 to 20 degrees.

Real-time feedback of head movements during simultaneous head-body rotations could increase success rates of self-treatments. Specialist-treated maneuvers can be used as permissible rotation margin criteria.