Assessment of dynamic stability and identification of key tasks, inertial sensors, and parameters in patients with bilateral and unilateral vestibulopathy: investigation in a semi-standardized environment.

Sample size was small: 19 patients with bilateral vestibulopathy, 20 with unilateral vestibulopathy, and 20 healthy subjects. The study was exploratory and did not test validity, reproducibility, sensitivity, or responsiveness of the tasks and sensors. The environment was supervised and semi-standardized, and patients knew they were observed, so performance may not match daily life. Wrist and thigh sensors were excluded after video and exploratory review, so the final 5-sensor set was chosen partly from the same data. The darkening glasses were not fully opaque, so the Walk in the dark task may not have truly simulated darkness. Healthy subjects were classified by history and interview without vHIT, and chronic unilateral vestibulopathy has no consensus diagnostic criteria. Physical activity level and vestibular physiotherapy follow-up were not analysed, so they may have affected results. Differences between bilateral and unilateral patients were limited, possibly because the unilateral group was heterogeneous.

Funding was provided by the Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung. The supplied text gives no other conflict-of-interest statement.

Do not treat this as a validated diagnostic test or as evidence that a rehabilitation programme works. The study was exploratory, supervised, and small, and it did not test treatment outcomes.