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Background: There are several protocols designed to treat vestibular disorders that focus on habituation, substitution, adaptation, and compensation exercises. However, protocols that contemplate not only vestibular stimulation but also other components that are essential to the body balance control in older people are rare. This study aims to compare the effectiveness of two vestibular rehabilitation protocols (conventional versus multimodal) on the functional capacity and body balance control of older people with chronic dizziness due to vestibular disorders., Methods/design: A randomized, single-blind, controlled clinical trial with a 3 months follow-up period will be performed. The sample will be composed of older individuals with a clinical diagnosis of chronic dizziness resulting from vestibular disorders. The subjects will be evaluated at baseline, post-treatment and follow-up. Primary outcomes will be determined in accordance with the Dizziness Handicap Inventory (functional capacity) and the Dynamic Gait Index (body balance). Secondary outcomes include dizziness features, functional records, body balance control tests, and psychological information. The older individuals (minimum sample n = 68) will be randomized to either the conventional or multimodal Cawthorne&Cooksey protocols. The protocols will be performed during individual 50-minute sessions, twice a week, for 2 months (a total of 16 sessions). The outcomes of both protocols will be compared according to the intention-to-treat analysis., Discussion: Vestibular rehabilitation through the Cawthorne&Cooksey protocol has already proved to be effective. However, the addition of other components related to body balance control has been proposed to improve the rehabilitation of older people with chronic dizziness from vestibular disorders., Trial Registration: ACTRN12610000018011.

Unlabelled: Dizziness is frequent in elderly people., Aims: To evaluate the Quality of Life (QoL) in elderly subjects with dizziness, relate it with gender and age., Material and Method: A prospective study comprising 120 elderly patients with dizziness evaluated with Brazilian versions of the Whoqol-bref and the dizziness handicap inventory (DHI). The factor analysis (FA), the Mann Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests, and the Spearman correlation were applied to study the results., Results: The most compromised domains were the DHI physical domain and the Whoqol-bref physical and environment domains. FA resulted in 3 factors in the DHI and 5 factors in the Whoqol-bref. There was a moderate correlation (-0.596) in the total scores of both instruments. Males had a better QoL in the "environment perception and introspectivity" and "health perception" factors of the Whoqol-bref test. Females had a better QoL in the "functionality perception" factor of the Whoqol-bref test. There were no significant age differences., Conclusions: Elderly patients with dizziness have a worse QoL. Elderly females with dizziness have worse QoL scores in "environment perception and introspectivity" and "health perception" and better QoL in the "functionality perception" factor compared to elderly males.