Making Vestibular Visible Podcast

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 The BalanceBelt is a smart belt that helps you to improve your balance during walking and standing. The BalanceBelt contains several tiny vibration motors. When the BalanceBelt senses that you are starting to lose balance, it will vibrate in the direction of your imbalance. Your brain will learn to compensate your body based on these tiny vibrations. The result: if you have severe balance problems, the BalanceBelt enables you to move freely again and look around you, without relying on walking aids. Professor Herman Kingma, who helped develop the BalanceBelt, will explain its technology and application.  Note: The BalanceBelt is currently only available in the EU. 

 Blue-light blocking glasses and their use for vestibular migraines. VeDA board members and vestibular physical therapists, Drs. Kathleen Stross and Danielle Tate, talk with Dr. Bradley Katz about vestibular migraine and light sensitivity. Dr. Katz specializes in neuro-ophthalmology and evaluates patients with diseases that affect the optic nerve, diseases that affect eye movements and neurologic diseases that affect vision. Dr. Katz’s research interests include photophobia and neurologic conditions. 

Firebrush founder Gloria Harris joins Dr. Stross to talk about free online classes and how they can help people with dizziness and imbalance.  Firebush, Inc. is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 2017 with a mission to give back to the community through funding that allows health and fitness professionals to provide safe, high-quality health and fitness classes at no charge to the elderly or anyone with mobility challenges.

 Vizziq Neuromuscular Trainer is an evidence-based mobility and gait training tool that can easily be adapted to user size and function levels. Vizziq is an effective gait training tool that can be utilized during both healthy times and after injury or illness, for faster recovery. Neuromuscular re-education and gait training is an important, but often overlooked, modality for use in falls and balance therapy, as well as, brain injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, post-surgical therapy, and injury rehab. Gait rhythms and patterns can be retrained, improving gait efficiency, independence and confidence, which will decrease fear of falling and dynamic stability.  

 This presentation brings to light the revolutionary science of fixational eye movements and how they play a critical role in stabilizing vision during head movements, influencing balance, and maintaining clear vision. Introducing a novel retinal-based eye tracking technology that has unlocked the ability to see the unseen eye movements underlying many patients who have "normal" examinations using pupil-tracking devices, and why using different ocular structures for eye-tracking may elicit different results. The discussion will highlight how small deficits in oculomotor control, such as impaired fixational stability, can exacerbate vestibular dysfunction and may affect rehabilitation outcomes in vision and vestibular therapy, as well as highlight neurologic conditions that may be impacted by fixational eye movements. This program is sponsored by C. Light Technologies, developer of the Retritrak system.