March 29, 2019
Steve Kolenda, MPT
“Balance Disorders”
Dizziness, aka “vertigo” , is just one form of Balance Disorder that is frequently experienced by airplane pilots. It sometimes happens in weather conditions when there are no outside visual references to which the pilot can refer. The “seat of his pants” might tell him he’s in a descending right turn, when, in fact, he’s in a climbing left turn. It’s a very dangerous phenomenon that was probably the key factor in young John Kennedy’s very early demise off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999. But pilots have flight instruments that they are trained to believe when they have physical perceptions that tell them otherwise, and thereby avert disaster.
But you don’t have to be an airplane pilot to experience a balance disorder. There are many causes: an ear infection, poor blood circulation, some medications, high- or low-blood pressure, certain neurological conditions, arthritis, and something that many of us are subject to – aging.
The subject is very broad with many causes, and that is why we have asked an expert, Steve Kolenda, to visit us on Friday, March 29th, to tell us more about this malady, how we can readily identify it, and give us recommendations to combat its potentially disastrous consequences.
