ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Dizziness is an illusion of environmental movement due to various causes. It is difficult to confirm the diagnosis of dizziness according to history and physical examination in restricted situation such as emergency room. The aim of this study is to find another clue for diagnosis in patients of dizziness who visited emergency room. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: Author retrospectively reviewed the charts of 1,060 patients of dizziness who visited emergency room at Chonnam University Hospital from July 2004 to June 2005 and accumulated the various information such as final diagnosis, clinical feature, physical examination, present illness and past history etc. RESULTS: Average age of patients was 57. The most frequently consulted department for evaluation of dizziness was the department of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery (> 29.8%). Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) was the most frequent final diagnosis (14.4%) in all patients. But, cerebrovascular disease was the more frequent cause for dizziness in male and old age group. Whirling type dizziness was frequent in BPPV (36.8%) and spontaneous nystagmus was detected frequently in peripheral type vertigo such as vestibular neuritis (65.1%). Average age of central vertigo patients was 61.4 and other vertigo patients was 55. Patients of central vertigo visited the emergency room more frequently in the months of Dec, Jan, Feb and patient of other vertigo visited more frequently in June, July, Aug. CONCLUSION: Various specialized departments should be involved in effective and exact diagnosis of dizziness. The organized questionnaire in addition to prevalence, incidence and characteristics of dizziness may be used in finding another clue for diagnosis and managing dizzy patients helpfully.