ear, nose, and throat disorders
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
Diagnosis of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
Dix-Hallpike maneuver Sometimes imaging tests Diagnosis of BPPV is based on a description of the symptoms and the circumstances in which they occur. Usually, the test used is the The Epley Maneuver: A Simple Cure for a Common Cause of Vertigo . During the Dix-Hallpike maneuver The person sits on the examining table with the head turned 45 degrees to the right. Then the person lies down backwards so that the head remains turned at 45 degrees and hangs over the examining table by about 20 degrees. There is a delay of about 5 to 10 seconds (called latency) before vertigo and nystagmus occur, but the delay may be as long as 30 seconds. Symptoms last 10 to 30 seconds, then decrease and disappear (called fatigue). Maintaining the gaze on a single location (visual fixation) can shorten or even abolish nystagmus, so the maneuver is ideally done with the person wearing Frenzel lenses (which make it impossible to visually fixate on anything). If the maneuver is repeated several times, the intensity of the vertigo and nystagmus decreases (called habituation or fatigability) in people who have BPPV. However, in people who have vertigo due to a brain disorder (such as Overview of Stroke or Sometimes imaging tests (such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) ) are done when doctors are not sure whether the vertigo is being caused by another, possibly dangerous, disorder. 