Vertigo and Balance: Clinical Aspect

Abstract

Those who feel a sensation of imbalance may complained of vertigo, dizziness, giddiness, unsteadiness, insecurity, weakness, faintness, light headedness, blurring vision and so on. Most of these abnormal sensations reflect some disorder of our control system of balance (equilibrium) function which is maintained by visual, vestibular (inner ear) and other sensory inputs (proprioception). Accordingly, a certain lesion that might interfere with some of these systems directly or indirectly could result in a balance disorder. A variety of diseases could be the cause of vertigo and/or some form of balance disorder. The main causes of vertigo are listed in Table 1 [1]. Most of them are not life threatening in themselves, but some of them maybe warning of more serious problems. It is important to diagnose carefully to determine the proper treatment for each patient to fully recover from a sensation of unbalance.