Effects of vibrotactile vestibular substitution on vestibular rehabilitation - preliminary study.

INTRODUCTION Some patients with severe impairment of body balance do not obtain adequate improvement from vestibular rehabilitation (VR). OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of Vertiguard™ biofeedback equipment as a sensory substitution (SS) of the vestibular system in patients who did not obtain sufficient improvement from VR. METHODS This was a randomized prospective clinical study. Thirteen patients without satisfactory response to conventional VR were randomized into a study group (SG), which received the vibrotactile stimulus from Vertiguard™ for ten days, and a control group (CG), which used equipment without the stimulus. For pre- and post-treatment assessment, the Sensory Organization Test (SOT) protocol of the Computerized Dynamic Posturography (CDP) and two scales of balance self-perception, Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) and Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI), were used. RESULTS After treatment, only the SG showed statistically significant improvement in C5 (p=0.007) and C6 (p=0.01). On the ABC scale, there was a significant difference in the SG (p=0.04). The DHI showed a significant difference in CG and SG with regard to the physical aspect, and only in the SG for the functional aspect (p=0.04). CONCLUSION The present findings show that sensory substitution using the vibrotactile stimulus of the Vertiguard™ system helped with the integration of neural networks involved in maintaining posture, improving the strategies used in the recovery of body balance.