VESTIBULAR AND SENSORY INTERACTION DEFICITS ASSESSED BY DYNAMIC PLATFORM POSTUROGRAPHY IN PATIENTS WITH MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS

Vestibular impairments have not been routinely identified in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), because of the confounding effects of de ficits in other neural systems. In this study, 35 patients with MS wer e evaluated by means of a systematic alteration of the sensory environ ment (dynamic posturography) in order to identify those patients who b ecame unstable when vestibular inputs were needed to maintain stance. Subjects were assigned to either a high-function (HF) or a low-functio n (LF) group on the basis of a functional status assessment score obta ined prior to the posturography test. For the HF group, 30% (7/23) had abnormal posturography scores. Of those subjects, 3 had a vestibular dysfunction pattern or a somatosensory-vestibular impairment. In contr ast, 58% of the LF group (7/12) had abnormal posturography scores. Nea rly all of these LF patients (6/7) had a vestibular dysfunction patter n or a combined visual-vestibular or somatosensory-vestibular impairme nt. Posturography might serve as one method to evaluate the functional consequences of a vestibular deficit in patients with MS.