Vertigo
What is Vertigo?
Vertigo is a symptom rather than a condition. It affects all ages young and old; it is often associated with the inner and middle ear. Vertigo is characterized by room spinning, dizziness is often described as a lightness or unsteadiness. Some vestibular conditions can have both vertigo and dizziness.
What can physiotherapy do for vertigo or dizziness?
Physiotherapy is a very important treatment for vertigo and dizziness. Physiotherapists can assess and see what is causing your vertigo or dizziness. Depending on what type of vertigo you have your physiotherapist will decide a treatment programme.
Types of vertigo we treat
BPPV
Can be very severe, characterised by spinning rolling over in bed, looking up, looking down. Severe spinning should not last more than 1 minute. BPPV is treated with manoeuvres. Medications often won’t have much of an effect on BPPV symptoms. BPPV is the most common type of vertigo. It affects older people more frequently however you can still have it if you are younger.
Labyrinthitis or Neuritis
Is often caused by a viral or bacterial infection. It comes on very suddenly, it can be very severe with nausea and vomiting, room spinning, head position usually doesn’t affect it. Other symptoms can include hearing loss or ringing or noises in your ears (tinnitus) and loss of balance. Severe symptoms can last several days however your balance and milder symptoms may take 2-6 weeks to improve. Physiotherapy can help to regain your balance and improve symptoms of dizziness quicker by doing a series of exercises to retrain your brain, eyes and ears to link up to compensate for any weakness left by the labyrinthitis or neuritis.
Unilateral Vestibular Hypofunction
Unilateral vestibular hypofunction happens usually due to aging or after an infection or a severe case of labyrinthitis or neuritis. It is where one side of the vestibular system isn’t giving a strong enough signal to the brain. Physiotherapy is the main and most successful treatment for this. It generally takes 6-8 weeks of retraining your vestibular system with exercises and most patients can make a full recovery.
There a several other conditions we treat that have dizziness and poor balance as symptoms you can check out our website for more details and to book for initial assessments for vertigo.
Vertigo Treatment
Vestibular rehab is a specialised type of physiotherapy that retrains the processes between the inner ear and the brain.