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Overview

Vestibular rehabilitation therapy (VRT) is physical therapy that helps to reduce or eliminate balance issues. Studies show people with balance issues who have VRT have improved balance, less dizziness and reduce their risk of falling.

What is vestibular rehabilitation?

Vestibular rehabilitation therapy involves exercises that help you manage dizziness and balance issues (imbalance). Vestibular rehabilitation therapy takes time, but it can improve your quality of life.

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Who needs to have this treatment?

Dizziness may be a symptom of certain medical conditions that also affect your sense of balance. Dizziness and balance issues may also cause muscle fatigue and headache. Vestibular rehabilitation therapy may help people with conditions including:

How does vestibular rehabilitation therapy work?

Dizziness and balance go hand-in-hand. Vestibular rehabilitation therapy helps you manage dizziness symptoms, including imbalance. To understand how therapy works, it may help to know more about why you may feel very dizzy and how your body manages balance.

Dizziness

Dizziness happens when something affects your sense of spatial orientation. Spatial orientation is your brain calculating the position of your body in relation to your surroundings. When that happens, you may feel woozy or lightheaded. You also may feel unsteady, as if you’ve lost your sense of balance.

Balance

Your sense of balance relies on the relationship between your central nervous system (brain) and your sensory system. Your sensory system includes:

Your vestibular labyrinth in your inner ear: This includes your semicircular canals (loops), which react when you turn your head, and otolith organs that react to gravity and movement.

Your vision: Your eyes send your brain impulses that show where your body is in relation to other objects.

Your skin, joints and muscles: When your body moves, it puts pressure on your tissues. Your tissues send signals to your brain, telling it where your body is in relation to space. For example, if you’re standing up and you lean back, you put pressure on tissues in the back of your foot and lower leg. That pressure lets your brain know you’re leaning instead of standing straight.

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Your central nervous system pulls this information together so it can tell your body how to maintain balance. When something interferes with the system’s connection, your central nervous system can’t process information correctly. Vestibular rehabilitation therapy helps restore those connections, ultimately reducing your symptoms of dizziness and imbalance.