Medical Monday Vestibular Therapy

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - For people who struggle with vertigo, one type of treatment is vestibular therapy. AR Gould Physical Therapist Bradley Ala says “By going through and getting them feeling better, it restores their function significantly, to the point where a lot of them think it’s life changing and they can get back to what they were doing before.”

Ala is talking about people who have benefited from Vestibular Therapy. This therapy is used to help people struggling with dizziness.

“We start first with a comprehensive eval to make sure we know what the symptoms are, for sure coming from the inner ear, it’s not something cardiovascular, come from the brain or something like that. And then from there, we try to provoke symptoms so we can identify which part of the ear is not working well and use that information to create our treatment plan.” according to Ala.

He says that treatment plan consists of stimulating the organs in the ear with visual feedback.

“A lot of times we have patients focused on an image or a letter and turning their head back and forth to try to recalibrate that connection between what the eyes are seeing and what the ear is trying to portray. If it’s a positional vertigo, we have maneuvers to try to put those little crystals out of the canals back into where they’re supposed to be.” Ala says.

The need for vestibular therapy can happen at any age and is quite common, according to Ala. “The vast majority of the population has some sort of deficit, whether or not it’s enough for them to notice. But it is extremely common, especially in this area. With the dry air in the winter, we have dusty air in the fall, we have pollen and everything else in the spring and summer. There’s a big connection between our sinus’ and the inner ear so we’re always seeing new patients, constantly.”

Ala discourages home treatments, but recommends seeking medical treatment should you experience any type of dizziness.

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