Cognitive Performance in People with Vestibular Disorders: An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

The impact of vestibular disorders on quality of life and the physical, emotional, and social spheres has been widely studied and documented. However, although functional and anatomical relationships have been found between the vestibular system and cortical areas, neuroimaging studies have established that domains like attention, memory, spatial navigation, and orientation would be involved, despite there being few studies investigating cognitive performance. This study aimed to identify and synthesize the available scientific evidence on cognitive performance in people with vestibular disorders and to analyze the methodological quality of the selected articles. An integrative literature review was carried out which surveyed the databases of ProQuest, EBSCO, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane Library, and SciELO. The studies’ methodological quality was assessed using the Downs & Black checklist for randomized and nonrandomized healthcare intervention studies. Altogether, 771 studies were found, of which 5 were selected and analyzed. The results show that the cognitive domains that are studied focus mainly on general cognitive status, visual-spatial skills, executive functions, and attention. Nonetheless, the findings are contradictory due to methodological differences (pathology studied, status of the pathology, instruments used, age of the participants, and lack of control groups, among others).