Another Spin on Dizziness

“It’s such an overnight, dramatic change from being independent, carefree, social.  These people had traveled all over the world, and then they fall and are like totally different people.  They are afraid to do anything.  They don’t go out anymore.  Their social life is gone.  They’re afraid they’re going to fall again.”

Ronna Fisher, president and founder of Hearing Health Center

New technologies offer hope, help for people with balance disorders

By Kathy Millen
Staff Writer

The laws of gravity are strict.

They also can also pose a deadly threat to those suffering from balance disorders.

People who regularly experience episodes of dizziness are at a higher risk for falling and suffering major injuries that can compromise health, well-being and independence.  Falls can land people in nursing homes.  Falls can kill.

Even the fear of falling can be life altering, affecting a person’s self-confidence, productivity, economic stability, social activities and quality of life.

As president and founder of the Hearing Health Center, with offices in Naperville, Oakbrook Terrace and Chicago, Dr. Ronna Fisher wants to help people keep their lives in balance.  Thanks to recent innovations based on technologies used by the U.S. space program to measure functions in astronauts, there is help for patients with equilibrium problems, Fisher said.  Two months ago, she opened the Center for Balance Disorders at her Hearing Health Center offices, in the Central DuPage Hospital Medical Building on Raymond Drive.  Equipped with the latest diagnostic equipment and a trained staff of doctors of audiology and a physical therapist, the center provides treatments to help patients compensate for their dizziness.

More than 90 million Americans will seek treatment for dizziness at least once, Fisher said.  Balance problems are the main reason people over 70 visit their doctor.  More than half of all accidental deaths and 75 percent of emergency room visits for that age group are caused by balance-related falls.

Fisher knows the devastating aftermath of a serious fall.  She has seen patients who had once been vibrant, active people turn into lonely, frightened recluses, afraid to leave the safety of their homes.

“It’s such an overnight, dramatic change from being independent, carefree, social,” she said.  “These people had traveled all over the world, and then they fall and are like totally different people.  They are afraid to do anything.  They don’t go out anymore.  Their social life is gone.  They’re afraid they’re going to fall again.”

The Center for Balance Disorders uses a variety of diagnostic technology to pinpoint the cause of a patient’s dizziness.  Electronystagmography records and measures eye movements.  Videonystagmography tracks eye position through the use of digital video technology.  Rotary vestibular testing measures the relationship between movement of the head and the movement of the eyes.  Computerized dynamic platform posturography tests the patient’s range of motion and ability to maintain balance under different conditions.  Hearing tests evaluate the outer, inner and middle ear.

The results of these tests determine the treatment used by a physical therapist at the center.  Therapies consist of balance retraining and vestibular habituation exercises, which work by repeatedly exposing the patient to dizziness inducing activities to strengthen and then reorient the central nervous system or help them compensate for a dysfunctional vestibular system.

Dr. Diane Hammel, an associate at the center, said these treatments help patients work through the dizziness without changing their movements.

“You have to provoke the problem and then help people get through it.” She said.  “As a result, some of the therapy can be unpleasant for people, because you are making them do the thing that makes them the most uncomfortable.  But that’s the way to get better.”

The ability to maintain balance depends on proper functioning of three sensory systems; vestibular, visual and touch as it relates to our sense of being grounded.  A breakdown in any one of the systems can cause equilibrium dysfunction.  Through these treatments, the patient learns to compensate for his dizziness by strengthening his visual system and his sense of being grounded.

“You aren’t going to cure it, but what you can do is strengthen your other systems,” Fisher said.  “Depending on which system is your weakest, you have to strengthen the other two.”

While conditions including brain stem tumors, head injuries and damage from certain medications can cause equilibrium problems, most cases stem from disorders of the vestibular system, or inner ear.  Common symptoms of inner ear disorders include dizziness, unsteadiness, nausea, vertigo, blurred vision, headaches, buzzing in the ears and hearing loss.  These disorders can strike at any time of life.

Inner ear disorders can be caused by inflammation or infections of the inner ear or a vestibular nerve, inner ear fluid imbalance (Meniere’s disease), an interruption of blood flow to the inner ear or brain, a slow growing inner ear tumor or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

The latter occurs when tiny calcium carbonate crystals within one of the ear canals become dislodged and float through the vestibular system.  A highly successful treatment for this condition is to position a patient’s body in a way that allows the crystals to float back into place.

Cindy Hagenbaumer of Naperville found relief through that treatment.  Two months ago, she suddenly became dizzy while getting out of bed.  She continued to experience dizzy spells every time she got up from a reclining position.  A neurologist referred her to the Center for Balance Disorders and, after a battery of tests, she underwent a positional maneuver treatment last week.  Since then, she said, her condition has improved dramatically.

“It sounds so simple,” Hagenbaumer said.  “She laid me down on my right-hand side, and I had to lie that way for three minutes.  Then I had to roll a little bit more and hang my head to the side and look down at the floor for two minutes.  That was it.  I felt fine after the treatment.  I feel really good.  It’s almost all gone.”

Fisher and Hammel treat patients with balance disorders who are as young as 24 and as old as 95.  One of them was dizzy for 30 years before she received the correct diagnosis and treatment.  It is not unusual for people with balance disorders to spend years in search of relief, Hammel said.  They are highly motivated to do what they can to feel better.

“It’s a huge quality-of-life issue,” Hammel said.  “It’s very debilitating.  To be better is to get back your life.”

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