With high healthcare costs and a patient’s quality of life at stake, it is important that audiologists recognize benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) during the intake process and provide a repositioning procedure or appropriate referral that can save someone’s life.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is a mechanical anomaly in which calcium carbonate crystals, called otoconia, detach from the otolithic organs and find their way into the semicircular canals.

A variety of causes for BPPV are postulated in the healthcare literature, including reduced bone density, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, head and neck trauma, infection, Ménière’s disease, vitamin D deficiency, space launch, surgical drilling, and migraine, although most cases remain idiopathic.