Review of the Vestibular System Function of People with Hearing Impairment and the Impact of Professional Sport

In sensory neural hearing loss, the damage is not limited to the cochlear part and the vestibular part is also involved. The results of sevral studies have shown that difficulty in balance abilities is more in deaf children than in their normal hearing peers. Also, deaf children have shown weaker stability in their postural control. In addition, several studies have emphasized that exercise is effective on keeping balance and partly to create a better balance for people with hearing impairment. Vestibular system is one of the three systems involved in keeping balance. Therefore, evaluating its contribution to postural control and balance and the effects of exercise on the growth of this system is essential. In the present review article, the balance state of deaf people and the impact of sports on the growth of their vestibular system are studied.
To review the vestibular system function of the people with hearing impairment and the effects of professional sport on it, all articles in this field, published from 1932 to 2015 were surveyed in ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, Elsevier, Ovid, Proquest, Scopus, and Springer databases.
More than 300 articles on topics related to postural control in people with hearing impairment and effects of physical activity on sensory systems and vestibular evoked potentials were available in these databases. Finally, we used 39 articles which were fully-researched papers and 7 abstracts.
Sports, due to their impact on the growth of vestibular system, can be considered a powerful therapeutic intervention for children with functional disorders of the vestibular system. Thus, sport activities are recommended for these people.