Current concepts and future approaches to vestibular rehabilitation

Over the last decades methods of vestibular rehabilitation to enhance adaptation to vestibular loss, habituation to changing sensory conditions, and sensory reweighting in the compensation process have been developed. However, the use of these techniques still depends to a large part on the educational background of the therapist. Individualized assessment of deficits and specific therapeutic programs for different disorders are sparse. Currently, vestibular rehabilitation is often used in an unspecific way in dizzy patients irrespective of the clinical findings. When predicting the future of vestibular rehabilitation, it is tempting to foretell advances in technology for assessment and treatment only, but the current intense exchange between clinicians and basic scientists also predicts advances in truly understanding the complex interactions between the peripheral senses and central adaptation mechanisms. More research is needed to develop reliable techniques to measure sensory dependence and to learn how this knowledge can be best used—by playing off the patient’s sensory strength or working on the weakness. To be able using the emerging concepts, the neuro-otological community must strive to educate physicians, physiotherapists and nurses to perform the correct examinations for assessment of individual deficits and to look for factors that might impede rehabilitation.