The benefits of the additional measurement of rotational degrees of free-dom on the performance of the vibration diagnosis of bridges are studied in this paper. The common vibrational diagnostics that uses translational degrees of freedom is extended by measurements of rotations. The study is curried out on a footbridge and the presence of damage as well as its location and size is determined with use of FEM updating procedure. The results showed that rotational degrees of freedom significantly improve the effectiveness of the vibrational method.