Diagnosis Of Vertigo And Dizziness

Vertigo and dizziness are not a unique disease entity but a symptom of many diseases, as for example headache. The terms cover a number of multisensory and sensorimotor syndromes of various aetiologies and pathogeneses, which can be elucidated only with an interdisciplinary approach. Vertigo and dizziness are among the most frequent presenting symptoms, with a life-time prevalence of about 30 %. The key to the diagnosis is the patient history and the bedside examination, which should aid the clinician to distinguish peripheral from central disorders of vertigo and dizziness since this has immediate diagnostic and therapeutic implications. The aims of this overview are to increase the reader's knowledge on how to take patient history and on how to examine the vestibular and oculomotor system.