Eye-closed positional and positioning nystagmus in an abnormal population—A comparison with two previous normative data studies

Abstract

This retrospective study investigated the diagnostic power of two previous built sets of normative data (Barber and Wright, 1973; Schwallie, 1988) by examining eye-closed positional and positioning tests in 100 clinical subjects who had balance problems. The research questions were: (1) What is the prevalence of eye-closed positional and positioning nystagmus in an abnormal population? (2) Which normative data set is more useful in diagnosis? (3) Are the two sets of normative data useful in diagnosis? The findings were: (1) Essentially, the occurrence rate of pathologic nystagmus was higher in the abnormal population than normals. (2) Female subjects had more imbalance problems than males. The age range of female patients was 31 to 70 years, while most male subjects were between the age of 21 to 30. (3) Both sets of normative data were found to be of diagnostic use; however, there was no evidence to show which is more useful. (4) Horizontal nystagmus data were more applicable in ‘‘peripheral’’ diagnostic categories while vertical data were applicable to both CNS and peripheral categories. It is suggested that eye-closed positional and positioning tests with both vertical and horizontal nystagmus deserve more emphasis in clinical situations.