Vestibular Dysfunction May Be Modifiable Risk Factor for Cognitive Decline

MONDAY, May 8, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Vestibular dysfunction is a potentially modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline, according to a study published online April 4 in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

Jiake Zhong, from the Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital and School of Clinical Medicine at Tsinghua University, and colleagues evaluated the cognitive functions, vertigo symptoms and related physical, functional, and emotional effects of patients with Meniere disease (MD) before and after treatment (three, six, and 12 months). Outcomes were assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and Dizziness Handicap Inventory.

The researchers found that before therapy, cognitive function (especially in memory) was impaired in MD patients compared with healthy controls. Cognitive impairment improved after effective therapy and was related to the severity of vertigo, particularly in functional and physical impacts.

"Given that MD patients in the middle and late stages often have progressive hearing loss that is challenging to recover from, the vestibular function is more likely to be a potentially modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline," the authors write. "In the future, we will conduct more objective and comprehensive evaluations, such as the number, duration, and frequency of vertigo attacks, cognitive tasks in various subdomains, and neuro-electrophysiological indexes on the patients and further explore the relationships between them with larger samples."

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