The aVOR App Increases Medical Students’ Competence in Treating Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)

Hypothesis: Implementation of the “aVOR app” into teaching courses at medical school enhances students’ satisfaction with the course and increases their competence in treating benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). Background: BPPV is often underdiagnosed and left untreated. One problem in teaching the management of BPPV to health care professionals is the lack of simulation-based training tools. The aVOR app (aVOR = angular vestibulo-ocular reflex) works as a bionic labyrinth that simulates the activation of the semicircular canals by rotational acceleration and the resulting vestibular evoked eye movements. Methods: In this prospective, randomized, controlled study, medical students at a university hospital were randomly assigned to two kinds of small instructional groups. Students of the control group (n = 67) practiced diagnostic and therapeutic maneuvers for BPPV on each other, while the participants of the study group (n = 46) used the aVOR app as a virtual patient in addition. At the end of the term, students were asked to arrange the steps of the canalith repositioning procedure in the correct order in a written test. Results: Quality of the teaching media was rated significantly better in the aVOR group (two-sided Mann–Whitney test: P 

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