Vestibular Rehabilitation

This type of rehabilitation deals with a variety of disorders that result in symptoms such as vertigo, dizziness and imbalance. Treatment is based on identifying the nature of the pathology.  This is done by obtaining a thorough medical history, which includes information on medications or other medical conditions, such as blood pressure issues, which can cause or contribute to symptoms. Some of these disorders such as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV), resolve quickly with manual treatment due to the nature of the pathology. Many other disorders that occur do not respond to manual treatment and instead are treated with home exercises. The exercises that are prescribed may be for habituation, where repeated exposure to a provocative stimulus will result in an improvement of symptoms related to that stimulus as the nervous system adapts to the exercises.  Exercises may also be prescribed on a substitution principle that causes the nervous system to change the value it attaches to certain sensory information. This decreases the reliance it places on the provocative stimulus by making it more sensitive to other sensory information, which it can then use to accomplish a functional task such as balance.