How to Choose a Vestibular Specialist?
Finding a qualified vestibular specialist who can provide an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment is no small task. In fact, it will likely take a whole team of providers from different disciplines to make sure that you get all the evaluations, testing, and treatments that you need. In this video, Dr. Anthony Veglia, DPT, discusses how to find qualified specialists to meet your vestibular healthcare needs.
For help finding a vestibular healthcare provider visit VeDA’s Directory.
TRANSCRIPT
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Dr. Anthony Veglia, DPT
Hello everyone. If you’re dealing with dizziness, imbalance or vertigo or if you know someone dealing with these symptoms, then you might be thinking, What do I do next? Who can actually help you with this? Or an unfortunately high number of people this can be a longer and trickier journey than it ever needs to be. On average, it can take about six months to get a dizziness diagnosis. But right off the bat, there is help out there. For instance, my name is Anthony Valeo. I’m a Doctor of Physical Therapy who specializes in Vestibular rehabilitation. And I’m an ambassador for VITA, the Vestibular Disorders Association. For a short and sweet answer, check out the Find a clinician link at VITAS website vestibular.org. There you can punch in your zip code, and you will find any and all Vida members nearby who can be a great start to get some help. Ideally, dizziness should be diagnosed and treated with a whole team backing you up a multidisciplinary approach because there’s no one the stimulus specialty in healthcare. It’s an area that’s covered by multiple types of providers. For example, I work at Scottsdale Ear, Nose and Throat. There we have to otolaryngologists or EMTs will be your first stop for an initial visit and a potential diagnosis. Then with some very specialized equipment testing from the Vestibular Doctor of Audiology, to determine many things about the health of the ears and brain towards your balance and orientation. And lastly, you’ll come hang out with me, a physical therapist for treatment with Vestibular rehabilitation. Depending on the cause, you may need to visit a neurologist more than an EMT. But this diagnosis should ultimately come from the physician, ideally one of those two specialists. For your rehabilitation, you’ll want a physical therapist who has experience specifically in treating patients with Vestibular disorders. Have they taken multiple and varied courses in this area? More than just like a one time Saturday? Are they involved in Vestibular organizations? Do they have the letters NCS after their name? That’s a neurologic Specialist certification. It’s a very meaningful title, really hard to get on. And it covers Vestibular diagnoses and a lot more in great detail. For Vestibular Disorders, you also really want your PT visits to be one on one. Many outpatient PT clinics have multiple patients per PT, which is fine for many orthopedic issues. But this really requires a different type of care. One of the easiest ways to find out if they can help you with these issues. Ask them what percentage of their patients are there for dizziness and balance and vertigo, and what diagnoses if they see a patient with positional vertigo once or twice a week, managing your complex Vestibular migraine might not be their area. If it’s 40 hours a week and covering nearly all the stimulator disorders like myself and others, you’re probably going to be in pretty good hands for these issues. Don’t settle for a PT who can’t answer those kinds of questions. Dizziness is already such a battle at times to get testing, get a diagnosis and receive treatment. So find someone who has the experience the training and the confidence to get you stable. To summarize, check out VT as big list of stimulant clinicians visit your doctor particularly an EMT and or neurologist, it testing with the stimulator specific equipment, and then get training from a physical therapist who knows these Vestibular Disorders well, not just BPPV that is one of the most straightforward diagnoses. But the diagnosis and treatment for it has almost no overlap with the rest of dizziness or imbalanced treatments. There are providers out there who can help you. So please use the many resources at Vida at the stimulator dashboard. And if you’re in Arizona, maybe I’ll be able to treat you myself. If you want more education from me, you can watch Dizzy therapy on YouTube for diagnoses and concepts about how these years work or how they’re supposed to work. And God bless you on your return to stability.