Determination of the presence of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo in patients with cervical disc pathology

Determination of the presence of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo in Patients with Cervical Disc Pathology Due to cervical disc pathology, the normal position of the cervical spine, sense of position and the anatomical position of the head will be affected. Pain and changes in the servical position also effect the position of semicircular canal in inner ear. The aim of our study is to investigate the presence of BPPV in patients with cervical disc pathology. This study will contibute to the etiology of the BPPV. Seventy-five(19 male, 56 female) patients aged 20-65 were included. Range of motion of the cervical spine were measured with a goniometer and lordosis angles were measured from the direct graphite with posterior tangent method. The quality of life of the patients were evaluated with Neck Disability Index (NDI). Patients were questioned whether the presence of the vertigo and the severity of vertigo was determined by visual analog scale. We assessed patients with vertigo by Videonystagmography(VNG) test battery. The mean age and degree of cervical lordosis was 45.09 years and 15.24, respectively. When cervical lordosis degrees and the range of motion of cervical spine were compared in patients with vertigo and without vertigo, there was no statistically significant difference(p>0.692). When the severity of pain and total scores of NDI were compared in patients with vertigo and without vertigo, there was a statistically significant difference(p<0.05). The mean total score of NDI was 16.74 and %57.3 of cases had moderate to severe disability according to NDI. In VNG testing of patients with vertigo, %2.3 of cases had left posterior canal BPPV, %2.3 of cases had right posterior canal BPPV. In conclusion, BPPV prevalence with %2.6 is very low in patients with servical disc pathology according to our results. It was found that degrees of cervical lordosis and joint mobility of the cervical region is not effective in development of BPPV. It was observed that vertigo affect negatively the quality of life of the patients. Keywords: Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, Cervical Disc Pathology, Neck Disability Index, Cervical Lordosis Angle