As age increased over 60 years, the VEMP response rate decreased dramatically. While age increased, the VEMP amplitude decreased in comparison to n23 latency prolonged. These findings might suggest that aging could deteriorate the saccular and corresponding neural functions. When interpreting the VEMP parameters, it should be kept in mind that aging could affect VEMP responses. Based on this study, we suggest establishing different reference values according to different age groups when evaluating VEMP response in patients with vestibular diseases.

Click stimulation of 34 ears (94%) produced 0.1-VEMP responses, whereas positive 0.2-, 0.5- and 1.0-VEMP responses were observed in 36 (100%). The latencies of peaks p13 and n23 were significantly prolonged between successive stimulus durations from 0.1 to 1.0 ms (p <0.05), in contrast to the p13-n23 intervals (p >0.05). The 1.0-VEMP displayed the largest SDs of latencies and interval among the four different VEMPs. The relative amplitude was significantly increased between successive durations from 0.1 to 0.5 ms (alphaT <0.05), but there was no significant difference between 0.5 and 1.0 ms (alphaT >0.05).

Although the use of bilateral acoustic stimulation shortens the vestibular-evoked myogenic potential latencies in normal subjects, it does not affect the bilateral clicks vestibular-evoked myogenic potential ability to detect retrolabyrinthine lesions. Bilateral clicks vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials are a more convenient mode with which to help diagnose both labyrinthine and retrolabyrinthine lesions than unilateral clicks vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials.

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