Motion sensitivity and caloric responsiveness in vestibular migraine and Meniere's disease.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: We examined whether scores on a motion sensitivity questionnaire (MSQ) could distinguish between vestibular migraine (VM) and Meniere's disease (MD). As a secondary goal, we examined whether scores on the MSQ correlated with results from caloric testing.

STUDY

DESIGN

This study administered a telephone questionnaire to subjects who met clinical criteria for vestibular migraine, Meniere's disease, and controls.

METHODS

A MSQ was administered to 20 subjects meeting American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO) criteria for MD, 30 subjects meeting Neuhauser criteria for both probable vestibular migraine (pVM) and definite vestibular migraine (dVM), and 22 controls.

RESULTS

The average score on the MSQ was 5.9 for VM, 4.25 for MD, and 0.4 for controls. Both the VM and MD scored significantly higher than the controls (P = 0.0001), but results were not statistically different from each other (P = 0.17). However, the average score for subjects with dVM was 7.1, which was significantly higher than subjects with pVM whose average score was 4.2 (P = 0.045) and higher than subjects with MD (P = 0.048). When each question of the MSQ was analyzed, motion sensitivity to riding in a car was found to be significantly different between VM (average score 1.1) and MD (average score 0.5), with P value of 0.048. Scores of MSQ did not correlate with the total eye speed (TES) on caloric testing.

CONCLUSIONS

Subjects with VM and MD had elevated levels of motion sensitivity compared to controls. Subjects with VM had more motion sensitivity to riding in a car than those with MD, but their TES was not different.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3b.