PP1115 - Comparison of Functional Balance Results Between Dizzy Adolescents Diagnosed with Anxiety and Those Without Diagnosed Anxiety

Background: Pediatric vestibular dysfunction has become widely recognized over the past two decades. Besides sensorineural hearing loss, the most common causes for a child to be dizzy are vestibular migraine, followed by concussion, BPPV, primary dysautonomia and anxiety in children ages 12 and older (Wang et al., 2021). Over the past decade, estimates of children diagnosed with anxiety reached 44% and have continued to rise, especially during and following the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent research in the adult population has shown that subjects diagnosed with anxiety are heavily dependent on visual cues to maintain balance and have abnormally increased sway when visual cues are not available. There are no studies to date reporting on the amount of sway in adolescents with diagnosed anxiety when visual cues are taken away. The sensory organization test (SOT) is part of the vestibular test battery at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and is a functional test that evaluates the amount of sway that occurs when the three sensory inputs to maintain balance: visual, vestibular, and somatosensory are manipulated. The SOT is useful to determine how the patient is using each of the three sensory inputs, in isolation and in concert, to maintain functional balance and is a valuable test to use with patients who describes their dizziness as “falling”, or “off balance”. There are 6 conditions which increase in difficulty as the test progresses. In clinics without equipment to perform SOT, the Modified Clinical Test of Sensory Integration on Balance (mCTSIB) is used to evaluate patient sway while selectively reducing the sensory cues needed to maintain balance, and is similar to the SOT. The aim of this study was to compare the amount of sway for each of the 6 conditions on SOT, and each of the 4 conditions of the mCTSIB, between adolescents with and without diagnosed anxiety. Research Design and

Methods: This was a retrospective chart review of adolescent patients, ages 10 – 19 years of age, with and without diagnosed anxiety who were evaluated and treated for balance disorders during their visits at CCHMC from January 1, 2015 through November 1, 2022.  Patients with known ear and/or hearing disorders were excluded from the study. Eligible subjects completed the SOT, or the mCTSIB, as part of their balance function assessment.   

Results:  Analyses will consist of descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and comparisons of the amount of sway (either normal or abnormal) between the two groups of subjects (those with a diagnosis of anxiety and those without anxiety) for each of the 6 conditions assessed through the SOT and each of the 4 conditions of the mCTSIB. ANOVA and MANOVA, as well as paired t-tests and post-hoc testing will be utilized, where appropriate, in order to make conclusions about the data.
Conclusions: We hypothesize that adolescents diagnosed with anxiety will have abnormally increased sway on SOT and mCTSIB conditions where visual cues are not available, compared to adolescents not diagnosed with anxiety. Data analysis is still occurring and results will be illustrated and discussed.