Patients who are experiencing an attack of acute vertigo often demonstrate nystagmus that could provide useful diagnostic clues that identify the underlying vestibular disorder. Such ictal nystagmus is encountered in primary care, emergency rooms and patients' home environments where methods of recording nystagmus (video nystagmography) are scarce....
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
Ictal nystagmus captured during vestibular events may serve as a useful diagnostic biomarker, but widespread community-based event monitoring remains investigational — no immediate change to routine clinical practice is warranted.
If vestibular event monitoring matures into a reliable outpatient tool, it could dramatically improve diagnostic yield for episodic vestibular disorders that are often missed between clinical appointments.
- 01Explores vestibular event monitoring in both community and emergency room environments.
- 02Identifies ictal nystagmus (eye jerking during a dizzy episode) as a key diagnostic biomarker.
- 03Aims to capture transient vestibular events that are often missed in standard clinic visits.
- 04Published in Neurologic Clinics, signalling growing interest in ambulatory vestibular monitoring.
- 05Bridges outpatient and emergency diagnostic approaches for episodic dizziness.
Ictal nystagmus is a diagnostic biomarker for underlying vestibular disorders detectable during community and emergency vestibular event monitoring.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42869520
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.ncl.2026.07.007.
- Journal
- Neurologic Clinics
- Publication type
- review
- Evidence level
- 4
- Population
- Patients experiencing episodic vestibular events in community and emergency room settings
- Intervention
- Vestibular event monitoring with ictal nystagmus recording
Primary outcomes
Diagnostic utility of ictal nystagmus as a biomarker for vestibular disorders; Feasibility of community-based vestibular event capture