![]() ![]() Given the short waiting times for NHS cataract surgery at the time, patients could only be recruited to the study a relatively short period prior to their surgery (median 25 days, range 14–40 days). We hypothesised that there are some factors associated with cataract surgery that lead to a relatively greater risk of falling (and increased dizziness) which may in some circumstances offset the reduction in falls risk (and dizziness) due to improvements in visual function. Dizziness is highly prevalent in the older population, 16 is linked to falls 13, 17, 18 and may be increased with poor vision. Self‐reported dizziness was also included as a principal outcome measure in this study. The results from large‐scale assessments of the effect of cataract surgery on injurious falls have also been equivocal. 13 concluded that there was no evidence that cataract surgery reduced falls rate after combining the data from the two randomised controlled trial studies 11, 12 in a meta‐analysis. However, although two open‐design intervention studies of cataract surgery found significant improvements in falls rates after cataract surgery, 8, 9 cohort studies and randomised controlled trials provide much more equivocal results. These studies suggest that providing cataract surgery to older people at risk of falling would lead to reductions in falls rates. 5 In addition, clinical audit studies have reported that many older adults who attended emergency clinics because of a fall or who had undergone hip fracture surgery had visual impairment, of which about one‐third was correctable by cataract surgery. 1, 2 Falls in older adults are not random, chance events or ‘accidents’, but typically multifactorial and linked to geriatric syndromes 3, 4 and most epidemiological studies have shown that visual impairment is a significant and independent risk factor for falls with an average odds ratio of 2.0. 1, 2 They are also relatively common, with at least a third of community‐dwelling, healthy adults aged 65 years and over falling once a year or more. In conclusion, the Italian versions of DHI, SVQ, and ABC are reliable and valid questionnaires for assessing the impact of dizziness on the quality of life of Italian patients with peripheral or central vestibular deficit.Īctivity-specific Balance Confidence scale Dizziness Handicap Inventory Situational Vertigo Questionnaire questionnaires vertigo vestibular.Falls are the major cause of death and non‐fatal injuries in the elderly. Correlations with clinical variables suggested that they can be used as a complementary tool for the assessment of vestibular symptoms. Validity was confirmed by correlation test between questionnaire scores. Cronbach's coefficient alpha, the homogeneity index, and test-retest reproducibility, confirmed reliability of the Italian version of the three questionnaires. We translated and validated the reliability and validity of the DHI, the Situational Vertigo Questionnaire (SVQ), and the Activities-Specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC) in 316 Italian patients complaining of dizziness due either to a peripheral or to a central vestibular deficit, or in whom vestibular signs were undetectable by means of instrumental testing or clinical evaluation. The literature provides many questionnaires to assess the outcome of rehabilitation programs for disequilibrium, but only for the Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI) is an Italian translation available, validated on a small group of patients suffering from a peripheral acute vertigo. Neurophysiological measurements of the vestibular function for diagnosis and follow-up evaluations provide an objective assessment, which, unfortunately, does not necessarily correlate with the patients' self-feeling.
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