4. コンピューター (Visual Display Terminal, VDT) 作業とめまい

抄録

　VDT (visual display terminal) syndrome has been reported since the 1980s as widely connected with the business or other use of personal computers (PCs). The typical manifestations of VDT syndrome are eye fatigue, dry eye, headache, neck pain, lumbago, anxiety and depression.
　Vertigo induced by VDT work is described herein. The characteristic of this vertigo is female dominant. We postulate the pathogenesis of this vertigo as follows: 1. The difference in the spatial cognitive process between males and females. It has been suggested that in the spatial representations of environments, males tend to use metric information in their brain, whereas females use external landmark information. When returning to the real world after working for prolonged periods at a VDT, people who use exocentric information confront some difficulty in direction-finding, and this process could well lead to provoke spells of dizziness in the real world. This might be the reason to explain female dominance regarding this type of vertigo. 2. VDT work requires frequent vertical saccade and results in vertigo. 3. Headache, migraine and neck pain induce vertigo, recognized as vestibular migraine. The rate of incidence of vestibular migraine is also dominant in females. 4. It is well known that depression and anxiety also induce the vertigo. The most important way of treatment is to avoid prolonged periods of VDT work.
　However, the relationships between cognitive processes, frequent vertical saccade, vestibular migraine and vertigo are not fully understood. Further investigation is still required.