Purpose
Peripheral vestibular dysfunction (PVD) is prevalent in older adults, particularly post-menopausal women. PVD greatly increases the risk of falling due to impaired balance and dizziness. Our aim was to investigate whether post-menopausal women with PVD, were at greater risk of fracture by also exhibiting poorer bone-related indices of fracture risk, than healthy post-menopausal women.
Methods
Healthy community-dwelling post-menopausal women (> 60 years) and those with clinically diagnosed PVD were recruited. DXA and pQCT-derived indices of bone and muscle strength and clinical measures of strength and balance, were used to characterise bone-related and fall-related indices of fracture risk. Univariate analyses were used to examine differences in indices of fracture risk between PVD and healthy participants. Correlation analyses were undertaken to investigate relationships between variables within each group.
Results
Women with PVD had lower FN BMD than healthy women (0.74 ± 0.13 g/cm2 versus 0.83 ± 0.10 g/cm2, p = 0.027). There were no between-group differences for any pQCT-derived indices of bone or muscle strength. Whilst PVD participants had lower scores on the Dynamic Gait Index compared to their healthy counterparts (18.9 ± 5.4, 22.4 ± 2.24, p < 0.001), there were no between-group differences for any other fall-related measure.
Conclusions
Post-menopausal women with PVD may be at particularly high risk of minimal trauma fracture due to a combination of lower BMD and increased risk of falling. These findings suggest that screening for osteoporosis in PVD populations and for PVD in osteoporotic populations, may be indicated given the high treatability of both conditions.