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Finding Balance: Dizziness and PT

May 14, 2024 | Tips & Trends
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Dizziness is common in people over 20 and it can be a big problem in your daily life. Feeling unsteady, lightheaded, or like the room is spinning is alarming, and makes day to day tasks difficult. The good news is that dizziness often has treatable causes, and your physical therapist can be the perfect person to help.

Understanding Dizziness

Dizziness isn’t a specific problem – it’s a symptom that can come from a lot of different issues. Feeling dizzy most commonly comes from issues with your inner ear, but it can also come from your vision, joint or muscle issues in your neck, migraines, changes in blood pressure, head injuries, or other neurological problems.

How Physical Therapists Help

To understand dizziness and how a PT can help, you have to know a little about how balance works. Your brain uses information from your inner ears, your vision, and input from your joints about their position and movement to keep you balanced and stable. Typically all of this information paints the same picture for your brain. If your brain gets conflicting information – say your inner ear sends different information than vision and your joints – that often results in a feeling of dizziness, unsteadiness, or vertigo.

Your physical therapist will ask questions about your history, then perform testing on all of the systems that help you stay balanced to figure out the cause of your dizziness.

Your treatment plan will vary depending on what your PT finds. Some typical examples include:

  • Exercises: Your PT may prescribe specific exercises to improve your balance, strengthen or stretch specific muscles, or to help retrain your brain to interpret sensory information. These can include gaze stabilization exercises which help your eyes and inner ears work better together, habituation exercises that help your brain get used to different types of input, and balance training on different surfaces.
  • Canalith repositioning maneuvers (CRM): If your dizziness is caused by benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), a specific type of inner ear problem, your therapist may perform maneuvers to reposition tiny crystals within your ear canal, alleviating your vertigo. They can also teach you how to do these at home.
  • Education: Your therapist will educate you about your condition, how to manage dizziness, and exercises you can perform at home. They may also help you modify activities that cause dizziness, or train you on ways to work through it.

Dizziness doesn’t have to interfere with life. Physical therapists can help reduce your dizziness, improve your balance, lower your risk of falls, and improve your confidence in your daily activities. Find a Phoenix Physical Therapy location near you.

 

Article courtesy of APTA.

The entire Phoenix Physical Therapy Team is committed to providing our patients with quality physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy in a safe and healthy clinic environment. We continue to follow the guidance provided by the CDC, WHO and public health officials to update you as new information becomes available. Let’s work together to keep each other safe and healthy.

The safety of our patients, communities and team members remains our top priority. We know you have a choice in your care providers and appreciate your commitment to Phoenix and our qualified clinicians.

Here are the actions we have taken to keep our patients, communities and team healthy & safe:

  • Flexible scheduling allows for social distancing
  • Regular cleaning and sanitation of all clinic surfaces
  • Facemasks must be worn by all Phoenix staff and are recommended for all patients
  • Screening questionnaire and temperature checks prior to entering clinics
  • 6 feet of social distancing throughout the clinics

Keeping Our Clinics Safe

Here are some tips on how we can keep each other safe:

  • Handwashing is your best self-defense against the spread of germs. When soap and water are not available and hands are not visibly dirty, use at least a 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
  • Please stay home if you are not feeling well, especially if you have a fever, are coughing or sneezing, or are experiencing shortness of breath. If a patient shows up with symptoms, the clinic team will work with them to reschedule.
  • Be vigilant. If you have traveled to any of the countries where there are outbreaks of the virus, please follow guidance from the CDC website and our Travel Guidelines.

Here are actions we are taking to keep our clinics clean and safe:

  • Equipment will be wiped down after EVERY use with antibacterial wipes/sprays
  • All surfaces that patients or staff may touch including door handles, countertops, seating, pens at sign-in, bathroom and all other common areas will be disinfected regularly
  • Treatment tables will be 6 feet apart
  • Team members will wash their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, particularly after going to the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing their nose, coughing or sneezin
  • Clinics will have hand sanitizer available at the front desk and in the treatment areas
  • Any Phoenix team members who are ill will be asked to stay home
  • We will maintain social distancing between patients in the clinic
  • Caregivers that are bringing a patient to the clinic should wait in their car or come back when the appointment has ended unless necessary (i.e. minor requiring a guardian or for assistance needs)
  • When possible, we will treat patients in private rooms to increase social distancing
  • Any patients that have underlying health issues (i.e. diabetes, respiratory problems, etc.) will be given the option to be seen during special clinic hours or can opt to be treated in a private room away from other clinicians and patients
  • All patients should be self-screening before entering the clinic. Our PCCs will perform a secondary screening during the check-in process and before patients enter the clinic including a screening questionnaire and temperature check.
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