Vestibular Responses to Bithermal Caloric and Harmonic Acceleration

Abstract

Vestibulo-oculomotor responses from 33 patients with either peripheral labyrinthine or central pathology were compared using the standardized Fitzgerald-Hallpike bithermal caloric and harmonic accelerations. In numerous cases (40%), patients with normal caloric responses reflected abnormalities in either their phase relationships or labyrinthine preponderance to sinusoidal acceleration. Results clearly indicate that harmonic acceleration provides additional information to the clinician in the evaluation of vestibulo-oculomotor pathology that is not reflected in the responses to standard caloric tests.