Cohen HS, et al. - As a part of this research, an updated version of an old test, Tandem walking was investigated. The intention was to gauge its usefulness for screening patients with vestibular disorders. The results pointed out that 23% of patients would not be identified. If this test was used for screening patients in the clinic or healthy volunteers, the cautious interpretation of the findings was to be undertaken.

Methods

• The plot of this research was a case-control study.
• The eligible candidates included 90 adult patients with vestibular disorders and 292 healthy adult controls.
• Analysis was carried out on the number of correct tandem steps they could perform with arms crossed and eyes closed in a series of 10 steps.
• Correct steps could be nonconsecutive.
• One practice trial with eyes open and three experimental trials with eyes closed were given for the candidates.

Results

• Researchers estimated the receiver operating characteristic (ROC), and sensitivity and specificity.
• Herein, the ROC values, sensitivity, and specificity were, at best, only moderate, regardless of how the age range was cut.
• It was observed even for subjects in the age group with the highest ROC value (i.e., age less than 50 years), ROC = 0.8, sensitivity = 0.77, and specificity = 0.72.