Abstract
Background:
Persistent post-concussive symptoms (PPCS) can affect various functional domains in pediatric patients, including balance and sensory processing. Auditory symptom burden, such as sound sensitivity or difficulty filtering noises, is increasingly recognized in PPCS, but its relationship to objective measures of postural stability remains underexplored. Force plate sway velocity (FPSV) offers a quantifiable assessment of balance and vestibular function. Understanding whether auditory symptoms correlate with FPSV scores could help better identify patients with vestibular abnormalities.
Hypothesis:
Higher auditory profile scores will be positively correlated with increased FPSV values, indicating greater balance dysfunction.
Methods:
This study included 72 pediatric patients with PPCS, defined as symptom duration greater than one month post-concussion. Auditory symptoms were measured by asking about noise sensitivity, filtering, and tinnitus using a severity scale from 0 to 3, with higher values indicating greater symptom burden. Balance was assessed using force plate sway velocity (FPSV) testing in four standardized positions; only the bilateral stance condition was used for analysis, as it best reflects general balance stability. FPSV was recorded in degrees/second, with higher values indicating worse postural control. Correlation between auditory scores and FPSV was analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.
Results:
The mean auditory profile score was 0.502, and the mean FPSV was 1.09 degrees/sec. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between auditory scores and FPSV (Pearson’s r = 0.275, p = 0.0195). This suggests that patients with greater auditory symptom burden also tend to exhibit greater postural sway, supporting a potential link between auditory dysfunction and vestibular instability in PPCS.
Conclusion:
In pediatric patients with persistent post-concussive symptoms, greater auditory symptom burden is significantly associated with increased postural sway as measured by FPSV. These findings suggest that auditory dysfunction may be associated with vestibular impairments. Auditory profile scores may serve as an early indicator of vestibular dysfunction or as a means to identify such abnormalities in the absence of tools like FPSV. Further research should investigate these markers' ability to identify vestibular dysfunction and allow for more targeted treatment to improve outcomes in this group.