Falls Prevention

Our centre is one of only a few in Australia that look at Falls Prevention. Falls , especially in the elderly can be catastrophic , so our centre has measures to help reduce Falls Risk and also strategies to rehabilitate balance structures that create dizziness or vertigo.

Dizziness and vertigo are very commonly seen chief complaints that a patient seeks medical attention. The term dizziness refers to a range of uncomfortable sensations, including feeling light-headed, feeling faint, losing your normal sense of balance, feeling woozy and having a false feeling of your body spinning around or moving to one side. The term vertigo refers more specifically to a false sense of spinning or sideways movement.

In most cases, dizziness accompanied by vertigo is the result of some sort of dysfunction in the body’s peripheral vestibular system. This system, found inside the inner ear, contains a group of connected structures which give all human beings the ability to maintain body balance, body stability and awareness of the body’s position relative to its surroundings. Some of the vestibular structures include the  the semicircular canals and the otolithic organs.  The peripheral vestibular system connects to the central nervous system through the vestibular nerve, which links the inner ear to the brainstem at the base of the brain.

Other areas that can lead to dizziness and vertigo are visual problems, as well as proprioceptive  problems ,especially that can occur in the neck and jaw , as well as other parts of the body.

The most common sources of dizziness and vertigo in the peripheral vestibular system include:

• Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), a condition which occurs when head injuries or other problems lead to the accumulation of small calcium crystals inside the semicircular canals.
• Meniere’s disease, a chronic disorder probably triggered by fluid abnormalities in the inner ear
• Labyrinthitis, an infection-related form of inner ear inflammation, and
• In addition, more than one-third of all people affected by migraine headaches experience a condition known as a vestibular migraine or migraine accompanied by vertigo (MAV).

For more information, please read our Vestibular Rehabilitation Brochure or make a Chiropractic NeuroRehabilitation Appointment by calling 9887 4144.