
Alyssa Pollastrini, DPT, MTC
You may have heard the term vertigo, or have heard of a friend experiencing vertigo. Well, what exactly is vertigo? An often underutilized and underrepresented specialty in physical therapy, vertigo is the sensation of the world spinning around you when you are not moving. There is a balance organ in your inner ear, which we call the vestibular system. The vestibular system acts as a human gyroscope, keeping us oriented where we are relative to space. It also helps to gauge how fast and how far we move our heads. When something happens to the inner ear, this is when you feel a sensation of vertigo.
You may have heard the term vertigo, or have heard of a friend experiencing vertigo. Well, what exactly is vertigo? An often underutilized and underrepresented specialty in physical therapy, vertigo is the sensation of the world spinning around you when you are not moving. There is a balance organ in your inner ear, which we call the vestibular system. The vestibular system acts as a human gyroscope, keeping us oriented where we are relative to space. It also helps to gauge how fast and how far we move our heads. When something happens to the inner ear, this is when you feel a sensation of vertigo.