Effectiveness of Gaze Stability Exercises on Balance and Activities of Daily Living Among Patients Suffering Vertigo With Vestibular Neuritis in Saudi Arabia

Gaze stability exercise is a medical procedure for persons with unilateral vestibular disturbances such as vestibular neuritis or persons who have had tumors of their 8th nerve. They are a crucial part of the vestibular dysfunction rehabilitation protocols in health centers. These activities which involve turning one's eyes at different angles while having their eyes focused on an optotype are aimed at helping improve the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR), visual acuity during head movements and also reducing vertigo and dizziness. Study aim: This review will be establishing the effectiveness of applying gaze stability with balance exercises procedure among participants who are suffering vertigo due to vestibular neuritis. Methods: Twenty volunteers between the age of 25-59 years old, diagnosed, and confirmed to be suffering from vestibular neuritis and vertigo will be used in this study. Gaze stability exercises will be performed while patients are in a seated position. Each exercise will last for 30 seconds and be done in phases that included; eyeball movement, saccadic eye movement, pursuit eye movement, vergence eye movement, and vestibular-ocular reflex exercise. Balance exercises will be performed in a standing position including both static and dynamic training with or without closing eyes. The following outcome measures for each participant will be assessed pre-and post-treatment after completing four weeks of intervention. They include; Arabic version of Activities-Specific Balance Confidence Scale (A-ABC scale), Arabic version of Dizziness Handicap Inventory (A-DHI), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), and Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (Katz ADL). The findings will then be subjected to statistical methods and data analysis using the SPSS toolkit. In this study we hypothesis that practicing gaze stability and balance exercises will have a positive influence on balance and activities of daily living among vestibular neuritis patients.