One simple question detects motion sickness susceptibility in migraine patients.

OBJECTIVE: To find out if motion sickness susceptibility (MSS) of vestibular migraine (VM) patients and migraine only (MO) patients can be reliably detected with a single simple question: "Can you read while travelling in a car without getting motion sick?". METHOD: Ninety-two definite VM and 58 MO patients and 74 healthy control (HC) subjects were asked about their MSS and about being able to read while riding in a car without becoming motion sick. A Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ-Short) including childhood (MSA), adulthood (MSB) and total (MST) parts was also administered to all participants. ROC curves of MSSQ-Short were prepared for "not being able to read in a car" as the gold standard. RESULTS: Mean MSA scores were significantly higher in both VM and MO patients than in HCs (p < 0.001), but their scores were not significantly different (p = 0.171). Mean MSB and MST scores were significantly higher in VM than in MO patients (p < 0.001) and both VM and MO patients had significantly higher scores than HCs (p < 0.001). MSA scores were significantly higher than MSB scores in MO patients (p < 0.001). All sections of the questionnaire were associated with high area-under-curve values for MSS detected by the question about being able to read in a car without becoming motion sick. CONCLUSION: We propose that all migraine patients could have the same level of MSS in childhood but MO patients are able to compensate over years, but VM patients are not. A quick way to determine MSS is to ask about the ability to read without becoming motion sickness while riding a car.

Space and motion discomfort in Brazilian versus American patients with anxiety disorders.

Space and motion discomfort (SMD) was studied in 38 Brazilian and 50 U.S. patients belonging to one of three diagnostic groups: (a) panic disorder with agoraphobia, (b) panic disorder without agoraphobia, and (3) other nonpanic anxiety disorders. A group of 30 U.S. normal controls was also included. SMD was assessed by the Situational Characteristics Questionnaire (SitQ), which includes two scales for SMD--the Smd1 and the Smd2, and one scale for non-space-related agoraphobic discomfort, the Ag1. The score in the Smd2 is based on the sum of Likert style items, while the scores of the Smd1 and Ag1 are based on differences between contrasting subitems. A significant diagnosis effect was observed in all scales, with the highest scores in the agoraphobia group. A country effect was found only in the Smd2. A country effect was also observed when all subitems of the Smd1 and Ag1 were added rather than subtracted, suggesting that this country bias is related to a tendency of Brazilian patients to endorse symptoms. Implications of these findings to the trans-cultural validation of rating scales are discussed.