Abstract

Introduction: Vertigo is one of the most common reasons for referring to emergency departments and benign positional vertigo is the most common cause of peripheral vertigo. Unlike reposition-ing manoeuvres in this Vertigo, evidences regarding drug therapy in this vertigo is little. The aim of this study was to investigate a comparison of diazepam and promethazine effects in relieving ataxia in patients with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigoin Arak emergency department of Valiasr hospital. Materials and Methods: This study was a double-blind clinical trial on patients with BPPV and ataxia admitted to Valiasr Hospital of Arak, Iran. Patients were divided randomly into two eqaul groups (35 persons) on the basis of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study. One group was treated with a dose of 12.5 mg of intramuscle promethazine and the other was placed under the administration of 5 mg of intravenous diazepam. The walking ability of patients and patients' vital signs, at the moment 0, 60 and 120 minutes after injection were examined. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software. Results: The mean age of patients (p=0.272) and sex distribusion (p=0.05) in the two groups were matched. 60 min after injection, the gait of the all patients were ataxic in both groups. In 120 minute, the results showed that in the diazepam group, 30 (85.7%) patients and in the promethazine group, 31 (88.5%) of the patients had no ataxia. Therefore, no significant differences were observed between the two groups (p>0.05). Conclusion: Our results showed that, promethazine and diazepam are equally effective in improving ataxia caused by benign positional vertigo. However, due to lack of evidence, further studies in the future is recommended.