A cross-sectional study on the neurocognitive outcomes in vestibular impaired school-aged children: are they at higher risk for cognitive deficits?

Abstract This study aimed to assess if children with a vestibular impairment (VI) are more prone to have neurocognitive deficits compared to typically developing (TD) peers, taking into account important confounding factors with hearing loss being the most important. The neurocognitive performance of fifteen VI children (6–13 years old) was compared to that of an age-, handedness- and sex-weighted group of TD peers (n = 60). Secondly, their performance was also compared to matched groups of TD and hearing impaired (HI) children to evaluate the involvement of HI. The protocol comprises cognitive tests assessing response inhibition, emotion recognition, visuospatial memory, selective and sustained attention, visual memory and visual-motor integration. Based on the results, the VI group had significantly reduced scores on ‘social cognition’ (p = 0.018), ‘executive functions’ (p < 0.01), and ‘perceptual-motor functioning’ (p = 0.020) compared to their TD and HI peers. For the categories ‘complex attention’ and ‘learning and memory’ no differences could be observed. Analogous to the findings of previous literature, the symptoms of a VI are often not limited to the primary functions of the system, but also comprise an impact on emotional and cognitive performance. Therefore, more holistic rehabilitation approaches should be encouraged, with a screening and attention for cognitive, emotional and behavioral dysfunctions in the vestibular population. Since this is one of the first studies to investigate the involvement of a VI in a child’s cognitive development, these findings support the need for studies further characterizing the impact of a VI, the underlying pathophysiology and the effect of different rehabilitation procedures..

Medienart:

Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2023

Erschienen:

2023

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:270

Enthalten in:

Journal of neurology - 270(2023), 9 vom: 20. Mai, Seite 4326-4341

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Van Hecke, Ruth [VerfasserIn]
Danneels, Maya [VerfasserIn]
Deconinck, Frederik J. A. [VerfasserIn]
Dhooge, Ingeborg [VerfasserIn]
Leyssens, Laura [VerfasserIn]
Van Acker, Emmely [VerfasserIn]
Van Waelvelde, Hilde [VerfasserIn]
Wiersema, Jan R. [VerfasserIn]
Maes, Leen [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext [lizenzpflichtig]

Themen:

Cognition
Neurodevelopmental disorders
Pediatric
Vestibular disorders
Vestibular system

Anmerkungen:

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

doi:

10.1007/s00415-023-11774-3

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

OLC2144959900