Medical treatment of vestibular disorders.

BACKGROUND

The lifelong prevalence of rotatory vertigo is 30%. Despite this high figure, patients with vertigo generally receive either inappropriate or inadequate treatment. However, the majority of vestibular disorders have a benign cause, take a favorable natural course, and respond positively to therapy.

OBJECTIVE

This review puts special emphasis on the medical rather than the physical, operative, or psychotherapeutic treatments available.

METHODS

A selected review of recent reports and studies on the medical treatment of peripheral and central vestibular disorders.

CONCLUSIONS

In vestibular neuritis, recovery of the peripheral vestibular function can be improved by oral corticosteroids; in Menière's disease, there is first evidence that high-dose, long-term administration of betahistine reduces attack frequency; carbamazepine or oxcarbamazepine is the treatment of first choice in vestibular paroxysmia, a disorder mainly caused by neurovascular cross-compression; the potassium channel blocker aminopyridine provides a new therapeutic principle for treatment of downbeat nystagmus, upbeat nystagmus, and episodic ataxia type 2.