Tag / Disabilities & Health

by Colleen Berlingieri

How Your Hearing Affects Your Balance

Your ears don’t just help you hear. In fact, they work together with other systems in your body to help you understand your place in space. If you have a steady sense of balance, you might not have a problem understanding where you are, how to stay upright, and how to keep yourself from falling. However, your eyes and brain aren’t the only organs involved in this process.

Many of those that have trouble with their balance find that the problem lies in their ears. Ear balance disorders can make you feel unsteady, wobbly, or constantly moving. These sensations of vertigo can seriously impact your ability to walk, stand upright, and even sit up. Before we touch on balance disorders and how they’re treated, it’s important to understand the ears’ role in balance.

How Do We Balance Ourselves?

Our balance system relies on the labyrinth, a maze of bone and tissue located in the inner ear. It holds the semicircular canals, the otolithic organs, and the cochlea. While the cochlea is used for hearing, the canals are used for balance. These look like three circular loops, and each is responsible for sensing a different type of movement. One senses up/down, another senses side-to-side, and the last senses tilt. When the fluid within these tubes move, the hair cells sense the movement and transmit it to our brain. This allows us to understand how we are moving through space. Our balance system is so sensitive that it even tells us when we are moving within a vehicle or elevator.

Problems with the inner ear can lead to balance problems, dizziness, vertigo, and even nausea. We might feel that we are moving when we’re not, struggle to stay upright or get motion sickness from standing still. These are all serious issues that can impact our ability to move around and sit up. People with severe vertigo might even feel sick while laying down.

Quite a few things can lead to balance problems, but it’s a lesser-known fact that hearing loss can cause balance disorders. Our ears are involved in more than just hearing, and the presence of the semicircular canals in our ears can lead to balance problems in people suffering from hearing loss.

What Are Balance Disorders?

Balance disorders are any condition that leads to a loss of balance or sense of vertigo/dizziness. These might be caused by simple things such as ear infections or low blood pressure, or a more serious issue like tumors or improper blood circulation. Regardless of what causes a balance disorder, it can lead to serious problems. A person with balance problems might feel like they’re tipping over, spinning, or floating, even when they’re standing still. Some people with balance disorders report experiencing vertigo when they turn their head, especially when getting out of bed or rolling over. They might stumble from time to time, hold walls to center themselves, or find themselves dragged to the ground. The severity of balance disorders can vary from person to person, and the cause of your balance problems can determine how bad they will be.

Balance Disorder Treatment?


The treatment of balance disorders largely depends on the cause of your condition. Infections can be treated with antibiotics, while illnesses like Meniere’s disease require other medications. Many people with permanent or untreatable balance problems seek out ear balance disorder exercises. These exercises are known as Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy, or VRT.

These exercises help desensitize their balance system to certain movements, making it easier for the person to move around without triggering their vertigo. While it might not completely solve the problem, it can prevent falls and make vertigo easier to live with. Many people who receive VRT have fewer problems bending over, turning their head, and walking over patterned floors.

These exercises must be performed properly to have any positive effect. A VRT specialist can help you learn more and guide you through the exercises. It’s important to do these exercises in the presence of a counselor. They will keep you from falling if you become overwhelmed and challenge you when the exercises become too easy.

If you are suffering from a balance disorder, and you would still like to ride your bike, please check out our adaptive cycling kits at FATWHEELS.com

by Colleen Berlingieri

It’s All About Balance

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of adults over sixty-five fall each year. Most are not seriously injured, but broken bones and head injuries from falls land about 700,000 people in hospitals each year, the CDC says.
Tiffany Shubert, a physical therapist who is also a research scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill confirms this statistic and is quoted as saying “And once people fall or become noticeably unsteady, “fear of falling” itself becomes a problem. “People start to limit their activity because they are afraid, they might fall. That can have a huge impact on quality of life. “You are afraid to walk up and down stairs, so all of a sudden you can’t go to the movie theater anymore.”


The key is to be thinking about balance before you ever have a fall.


To give us some information about balance, we turn to Peter Wayne, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Peter maintains that balance is not just a matter of how well the vestibular system of the inner ear is working. Declines in strength, flexibility, vision, touch, and mental functioning can all contribute to balance problems. “Balance is a very complicated process,” he says. But improving it can be simple. Here are a few tips:


• Practice standing on one foot, challenging yourself to increase the duration. You can do it online at the grocery store or while brushing your teeth. If that is too difficult at first, start by using a chair back or bathroom counter for support. If it is easy, try raising your foot higher or holding it out to the side. For extra challenge, try standing on a throw pillow or closing your eyes.


• Try heel-to-toe walking, as if on a balance beam.


• Practice getting in and out of a chair without using your hands.


• Exercise while standing on a wobble board or Bosu ball (an inflated rubber disc on a stable platform).


• Try tai chi or yoga. The evidence that tai chi can improve balance is especially strong, and studies show it is quite safe for people of all ages and fitness levels. In a typical class, a series of movements is performed in a slow, graceful flow, accompanied by meditative deep breathing.


If you are an older adult that likes cycling, you may also want to consider adaptive cycling by outfitting a bike with a set of wheel stabilizers like FATWHEELS. These heavy duty “training wheels” retrofit to almost any bike on the market and they will provide you with the stability you need to enjoy the FUN, FREEDOM & HEALTH benefits of riding a bike despite any challenges that you may have with your balance.


And remember what Albert Einstein said; “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving!”


Until next time,

Colleen

by Colleen Berlingieri

Meet Rachael Wrobel

Rachael Blog Pic

I first met Rachael at a bowling alley.  She is a support worker for people with disabilities and she was there with a client. At the time, I was looking for someone to work with my son and Rachael was highly recommended. Acquaintances told me she was a safe driver, filled out paperwork on time and was very engaged with her clients. She sounded perfect, so I walked over to meet her. I waited while she finished assisting a young man with his bowling shoes before I stuck out my hand to introduce myself.  She extended her hand towards me and that’s when I noticed that she has no fingers. Yes, you read that correctly—the girl who drove to the bowling alley, helped her client with his fine motor tasks and filled out service logs…Has. No. Fingers.

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