Every individual’s presentation, goals and activities of daily living are different, and the treatments for dizziness can vary as well.
Dizziness, balance, and vertigo issues are varied in their causes and symptoms. The umbrella term “dizziness” encompasses a list of symptoms, including vertigo, light-headedness, debarquement, nausea, imbalance, and blurry vision, among other less-common symptoms. A person may feel fullness, pressure, or heaviness, and there can be hearing changes such as tinnitus, shushing, and buzzing in their head and ears.
When these symptoms occur, one should always be aware of the signs of stroke and proceed to the emergency room if they experience them. These include trouble speaking, trouble swallowing, double vision/vision changes, vertigo, loss of function of one side of face or body, and/or sudden memory loss.
If these symptoms are not present, it is also recommended that a person consult with their family physician in tandem or before heading to vestibular rehabilitation to receive appropriate imaging and testing to rule out central or systemic causes of some of these symptoms. After this has been reviewed, you can choose to call for an appointment with our vestibular rehabilitation physiotherapists to start physiotherapy treatment for dizziness.
Various peripheral causes of dizziness exist. Typically there is involvement of the inner ear (most commonly) and/or the cervical spine. Based on a thorough vestibular assessment and the working diagnosis as to the elicitation and cause of your symptoms, a treatment plan is formed.
Treatment for dizziness has many components, again based on the assessment findings. These are primarily movement prescriptions of the head, body, and/or eyes in an individualized pattern, direction, coordination and frequency.
For instance, to determine treatment with BPPV (Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo), there is a determination of whether the symptoms of vertigo and dizziness are being caused by the discoordination in the posterior canal of the vestibular organ in one ear or two ears, or the discoordination in the horizontal canal of the vestibular organ. This then will determine what movement pattern to teach the patient to clear their BPPV. This treatment typically is successful in 3-10 days!
On the other hand, for vestibular loss in one or both ears, the treatment for dizziness is much different than BPPV and can take a time over 3-6 months, with improvement every two weeks of consistent compliance with the rehabilitation movement program.
Treatments for dizziness for those assessed by a vestibular rehabilitation physiotherapist as appropriate will be successful to relieve and/or eliminate symptoms to restore more and/or full function for:
- Positional vertigo (BPPV)
- Dizziness
- History of falls
- Poor balance
- Nausea related to movement
- Post-concussion
- Post-operative Meniere’s Disease
- Port-operative acoustic neuroma
Every individual’s presentation, goals and activities of daily living are different, and the treatments for dizziness can vary as well.
At East Gwillimbury Physiotherapy, we are happy to help and serve our community in Newmarket, Ontario and those in surrounding areas.