Effects of Vestibular Training on Postural Control of Healthy Adults Using Virtual Reality

Summary

Postural instability is a common symptom of vestibular dysfunction that impacts a person's day-to-day activities. Vestibular rehabilitation is effective in decreasing dizziness, visual symptoms and improving postural control through several mechanisms including sensory reweighting. As part of the sensory reweighting mechanisms, vestibular activation training with headshake activities influence vestibular reflexes. However, combining challenging vestibular and postural tasks to facilitate more effective rehabilitation outcomes is under-utilized. The novel concurrent headshake and weight shift training (Concurrent HS-WST) is purported to train the vestibular system to directly impact the postural control system simultaneously and engage sensory reweighting to improve balance. Young healthy participants will perform the training by donning a virtual reality headset with an overhead harness on and a spotter present to prevent any falls. The investigators propose that this training strategy would show improved outcomes over traditional training methods by improving vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR) gains, eye movement variability, sensory reweighting and promoting postural balance. The findings of this study may guide clinicians to develop rehabilitation methods for vestibular postural control in neurological populations with vestibular and/or sensorimotor control impairment.

Eligibility

Age range

18–35 years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Interventions

• Device
  Vestibular training using VR followed by Control

  A cross-over design will be used with group one receiving the training intervention for 6 days, a 4-day washout period, and a 6-day no-training period.

• Device
  Control followed by Vestibular training using VR

  Group two will follow the reverse sequence.

Location