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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neuro-Otology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1491195

Subconscious vibrotactile stimulation improves mobility and balance in patients with bilateral vestibulopathy: adherence over 2 years

Provisionally accepted
Herman Kingma Herman Kingma 1,2*Dan D. Hougaard Dan D. Hougaard 2Raymond Van De Berg Raymond Van De Berg 1
  • 1 ORL, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
  • 2 Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: To investigate the effect of daily use of subconscious vibrotactile stimulation in bilateral vestibulopathy (BVP) patients, who judged the effect of vestibular rehabilitation as insufficient.Methods: BVP patients were asked to wear a subconscious vibrotactile stimulation belt for 2 hours.Patients who reported benefit after 2 hours of use, were instructed to wear a subconscious vibrotactile stimulation belt in daily life, for up to more than 2 years. Follow-up consultations (mostly by telephone calls) were scheduled after 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year and 2 years of use. During these consultations, adherence and the self-reported overall Balance and Mobility Score (BMS) were evaluated.One hundred twenty-one BVP patients were included. Regarding adherence, 74% of patients (n=89) wanted to proceed with daily use at home after 2 hours of try out. Of these patients, 90% (n=80) was still wearing the belt daily after two months, and at least 81% (n=72) after one year and 73% (n=65) after two years. It should be noted that lack of adherence after one and two years resulted from a loss to follow-up. All patients responding to telephone consultations in the two years follow up were wearing a subconscious vibrotactile stimulation belt daily. The median BMS score significantly improved within two hours of use, from 4 to 6 points (p<0.0001). Compared to baseline, the median BMS score significantly improved with >3 points after 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year and 2 years of daily use (p<0.0001). Long-term adherence was high in patients who experienced an increase of two or more points on the BMS, after 2 weeks of daily use.The Subconscious vibrotactile stimulation improves self-reported balance and mobility in a subgroup of motivated BVP patients in which vestibular rehabilitation is insufficient.

    Keywords: bilateral vestibular loss, vibrotactile stimulation, Vibratory, Vestibular prothesis, Rehabilitation, balance belt, Quality of Life, mobility

    Received: 04 Sep 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kingma, Hougaard and Van De Berg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Herman Kingma, ORL, Maastricht University, Maastricht, 6202 AZ Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.