Vestibular Rehab

AnneT · Sep 27, 2022

Marta, here it is. The main info that I gathered is around July and September of 2019.

Marta · Sep 27, 2022

AnneT said: ↑

Ok, here are the initial exercises that my vestibular physiotherapist showed me.

1. Sitting in a chair, sit up straight. Then quickly flop your head and torso towards the floor the left of your left knee. Hang out there for a bit. Then flop back up quickly to sitting. Repeat on right.

2. Straighten your arms out in front of you, clasp hands together, with thumbs up. Stare at your thumbs, as you swing your arms (keep hands clasped) fully to the left and right, for 10x.

3. Turn your head to the left and right, full range of motion, 10x.

4. Hold a paper or book with printing in front of you, at eye height. Focus on some print, while turning your head left and right quickly (not full range of motion), as fast as you can while keeping the print in focus, for count of 10.

5. Extend one arm straight out in front of you, hand in "thumbs up" position. With both eyes open, make the thumb "cover" something on the wall. Without moving your hand/thumb, focus on the thing on the wall, then focus on the thumb. Repeat x10.

He had me choose which one was the easiest, and told me to do just that one. But I've used all of them.

Further general instructions:

Sit quietly, and rate how dizzy, off balance, queasy, etc you feel, out of 5 (0 being totally comfortable, 5 being the worst.) Then do the exercise to the extent that you feel only 1 point worse, then stop, and let it recuperate back to your starting number. It may take seconds or minutes. You don't want to overdo it and wind up stimulating the yuck, which can just make your brain more wired ("recruitment") to feeling gross.

Repeat this for 12-20 minutes, 12x per day, for optimal benefit. (Prepare yourself to cope with some boredom!)

Bonus info (has been super helpful to me during my recovery from gentamicin injection):

When you are feeling off, either during these exercises, or doing regular life activities, you can recuperate faster by using your hands cupped around and above your eyes (like horse blinkers), to narrow down what you see, and look at something visually calm. Find de-cluttered areas in your home, or cover up visually busy places with a plain blanket.

When beginning to walk outside again, use a cane, and choose visually calm areas - avoid walking beside traffic, flickering fences, low noise, avoid sensory overload etc. Wear a hat and sunglasses. Find places with benches so you can rest as soon as you feel nauseated or off, or just go a few minutes away from home and back. You can always repeat.

The vestibular rehab creates heat, so use and ice pack on your face, neck and allow breezes on your limbs.
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Thank you Anne ever so much! They will be very useful.

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