Dizziness Depot

We know that epidemiology studies are influenced by the person or specialty performing the study. For example, ear specialists will find vestibular disorders as the cause for the complaint of dizziness more often than will primary care physicians. Is this because of the tests performed or simply the perspective of the examiner? Well, you won’t find it if you ain’t

Numerous researchers have noted a correlation between vestibular disorders and anxiety or panic disorder.  As noted last week, whether vestibular disorders may lead to panic disorder or whether vestibular complaints are consequential of panic disorder is a subject of much speculation and research. Here is a short summary (with my snarky comments inserted in parentheses) of some research on the

Anxiety seems to be part of everyone’s daily life. Some days we manage it well, other days we succumb to road rage, yell at the dog, do some meditation, or hang in there until cocktail hour. Many people resort to some type of pharmaceutical panacea, the most common being Xanax, Valium and Ativan. If one were to do nothing more

Mefloquine is a drug used for the prevention of malaria. It has come under some scrutiny lately as it has been mentioned as a possible contributor in the Sergeant Robert Bales incident. He is the soldier recently convicted of killing 16 Afghan civilians. Mefloquine has been suspected of causing numerous psychiatric or neurologic type symptoms, including permanent vestibular injury. According

Last week, we reviewed a recent story published by Johns Hopkins. The story summarizes an article that recently appeared in the July issue of Emergency Academic Medicine. This week, I want to discuss some new (at least to me) demographic information that was obtained as part of that article. Here Comes the Wave The first issue is the sheer number

Can I get an “Amen?” A recent article published by Johns Hopkins (www.hopkinsmedicine.org) nicely summarizes and adds some interesting facts to the argument (okay, soapbox) that I have been trying to make over the past year or two: the practice of ordering CT scans, and not doing a brief vestibular function screening when a patient arrives at the Emergency Room

This week’s post is an excerpt from my book: Vestibular Function: Clinical and Practice Management (Thieme 2011). “The primary role of the balance system is to allow humans to interact and maintain contact with their surroundings in a safe, efficient manner. As humans move through their environment, information is gathered through their visual, somatosensory, and vestibular senses and sent to

Caloric irrigation is performed by irrigating the ear canal with either water or air for a period of 30 to 60 seconds. In order for the test to provide sensitive, accurate information, several minimum standards must be met. 1. The temperature of the air or water must be precisely 7 degrees Celsius over or under body temperature to compare to

A brief word of caution – this week’s blog is not for general consumption. It will be confusing to those not very familiar with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Last week, I blogged about some recent courses I had taught, and promised to post about a new trick I learned in the process. I was about halfway through a 90-minute

I had a different kind of week last week. I took the week off from seeing vestibular patients to teach a couple of courses. On Tuesday, I spoke to a small group of Otolaryngologists and Audiologists about the differences between primary care and specialty clinic management of the dizzy patient. On Friday and Saturday, I spent all day (and I