Vestibular rehabilitation in adults: An overview

Vertigo and dizziness are among the most common medical complaints, affecting an estimated 15%–30% of the adult population, increasing in frequency with age, and causing disability with high social costs. Over the years, the range of vestibular rehabilitation (VR) techniques available to patients has expanded from the 1940s, when Cawthorne and Cooksey observed that subjects with vestibular injuries tended to do better with exercises aimed at promoting eye and head movements in a graded manner, to today with the increasingly widespread use of virtual reality. The aim of this article is to trace the most important steps in the history of VR.