Comprehensive vestibular and balance testing in the dizzy pediatric population.

OBJECTIVE To describe the spectrum of balance disease in a large population of children presenting to a tertiary care vestibular and balance laboratory. STUDY DESIGN Case series with chart review. SETTING Tertiary care pediatric hospital. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Results of audiometric, vestibular, and balance tests and final diagnosis. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Retrospective review of audiometric, vestibular, balance testing, and final diagnosis from a patient database. RESULTS Between September 2003 and September 2007, 132 children were evaluated at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children Vestibular Disorders Program. Sixty-nine of the patients were boys and 63 were girls. The average age was 9.7 ± 5.0 years (range, 1-17 years). Although not all were able to complete the entire test battery (99 children completed at least 50% of the tests in the protocol), a diagnosis was achieved in most cases. The most common diagnoses were peripheral vestibulopathy (29.5%), migraine/benign recurrent vertigo of childhood (24.2%), motor/developmental delay (10.6%), traumatic brain injury (9.8%), and central nervous system structural lesion (9.1%). CONCLUSIONS Peripheral vestibular deficits and migraine disease account for most of the pathology in the pediatric population. With a multidisciplinary approach, diagnosis of the source of vertigo and imbalance is possible in most children.