Dizziness And Quality Of Life

For over twenty years in my practice, I have personally witnessed the impact of helping people recover from various disorders, not just in terms of their health, but also in their ability to improve their quality of life. Dizziness is a very common and growing problem of modern life. One whose implications are largely unrecognized by the traditional medical establishment. This has left millions of people suffering from an untreated problem that interferes not only with their ability to function, but also with their quality of life. Worse still, many are treated with drugs that will antagonize and complicate their problem making their dizziness worse. To complicate this even further, managed care organizations now call the shots leaving doctors hands virtually tied when it comes to appropriate management of patients. Al though patients will typically complain of dizziness, clinically patients will fit into three categories; vertigo, (spinning), dysequilibrium, (imbalance) or true dizziness, (lightheadedness). Again to complicate matters, each one of these can cause the others. So if a patient suffers with vertigo, it won’t be long before they begin to notice imbalance. And if you have ever had vertigo, you know that dizziness and nausea follow each attack. Because of this progression of disorders, individuals who have suffered any of these symptoms should be assessed for fall risk, due to the complications associated with falls, especially the elderly. Falls are such an endemic problem that there are now federal requirements requiring various institutions be assessing individuals for fall risk. Our office happens to be one that complies with this and we screen many individuals daily. We offer this free of charge as a community service due to the number of lives it can save. We use a simple 20 second test having the individual stand on a computerized board which measures their overall stability as well as every possible statistic that can be calculated from the information it derives during the 20 seconds. We can use this information to treat and formulate simple exercises, which will reduce the risk of fall and greatly improve the stability score on follow-up testing. You can see and find out more about this equipment in our laboratory on our website.