الفهرس 
Functional Anatomy of the Vestibular SystemOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Unilateral peripheral vestibular dysfunction (UPVD) can occur as a result of disease, trauma or post-operatively. The dysfunction is characterized by complaints of dizziness, visual or gaze disturbances and balance impairment. Current management includes medication, physical maneuvers and exercise regimes, the latter known collectively as vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT).
There are several mechanisms involved in the recovery of function following unilateral peripheral vestibular lesions. Spontaneous recovery, plasticity of CNS or the substitution of visual and somatosensory cues for the lost vestibular function. The exercises commonly used in vestibular rehabilitation program are based on vestibular adaptation as well as facilitation of the use of visual and somatosensory cues for balance (Herdman, 1998(.
The best stimulus to improve gaze stability is the movement of the head while patient is trying to keep image in focus. This creates an error signal which the brain attempts to minimize by increasing the gain of the vestibuloocular reflex (VOR).
Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) is a method of electrical stimulation which primarily aims to provide a degree of pain relief. However, TENS is recently introduced in vestibular rehabilitation therapy providing specific exogenous stimulation of the proprioceptors of the neck muscles (Cesarani et al; 2004).
This work was designed to study the effect of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) on rehabilitation of patients with UPVD. This study included two groups each group consisted of 15 patients with UPVD (all diagnosed as vestibular neuritis) submitted to full history taking, otologic examination, VNG and VEMPs. One group received VORx1 home based therapy for one month and the other group received stimulation of the SCM by TENS two sessions per week, each session lasted for 30 minutes, for one month.
Daily Activity Scale (DAS) and Dynamic Visual Acuity horizontal and vertical (DVAh, v) were used to evaluate both rehabilitation protocols.
The results of this study showed statistically significant improvement in (DAS) and (DVAh, v) in each rehabilitation protocol with insignificant difference between the out come of each one.