The doctors in the consultation for dizziness and balance disorders take part in the interdisciplinary skull base board of the Clinics for Neurosurgery, Neuroradiology, Radiation Oncology and ORL Medicine in order to provide each patient with a vestibular schwannoma with individual treatment for balance problems as part of the overall therapeutic concept.
Treatment
This is particularly important for the mobility and quality of life of patients with bilateral vestibular schwannomas in the context of neurofibromatosis type 2. The “vestibular prehab” is of particular importance here. It is used preoperatively if it is foreseeable that the vestibular organ on the affected side will fail during the operation in a patient with a unilateral vestibular schwannoma and intact vestibular function on the opposite side. This would be equivalent to an acute loss of the vestibular system and would lead to severe post-operative dizziness with limited mobility.
To alleviate these symptoms, intratympanic gentamicin can be administered a few weeks before the operation, which leads to a slow loss of vestibular function before the operation. At the same time, patients undergo vestibular physiotherapy together with our physiotherapists in order to accelerate vestibular compensation (see“Unilateral loss of the vestibular system“). The combination of these two measures keeps post-operative dizziness to a minimum and patients are mobile again more quickly.
