VEMP Findings in Individuals with Otitis Media

Abstract

The study aimed to assess reliability of bone conducted VEMP and also to determine relationship between duration of Otitis media and VEMP results. Two groups of subjects were taken for the study, control group (30 adults) having normal hearing and clinical group (30 adults) having otitis media. Air conducted and bone conducted VEMP were recorded for all the subjects in both control and clinical group after establishing the pure tone thresholds and assessing middle ear status through pure tone audiometry and immittance audiometry respectively. The results showed that the mean pl 3 and n23 latencies were prolonged and peak to peak amplitude reduced for bone conducted VEMP in clinical group than the control group & there was a positive correlation between the mean latency of pl 3 and duration of otitis media. The results of the present study suggest that bone conducted VEMP may be used as a clinical tool to evaluate the functioning of vestibular system (saccule/ inferior vestibular nerve) in individuals with otitis media, and the degree of hearing loss and duration of otitis media may be factors affecting the VEMP findings.