CAVA: A System for Identifying Nystagmus

As populations age, dizziness is becoming an increasing burden on health services. Dizziness is often episodic and can have many possible causes. When dizziness is due to inner-ear malfunctions, it is usually accompanied by abnormal eye-movements called nystagmus. The CAVA (Continuous Ambulatory Vestibular Assessment) device has been developed to provide continuous monitoring of eye-movements to gain insight into the physiological parameters present during a dizzy attack. We describe the development of the device and the accompanying algorithms for detecting nystagmus. In a blinded trial involving 17 healthy subjects who induced periods of nystagmus artificially, the system achieved a detection accuracy of 98.77%.