Multi-Disciplinary Team Approach
Foundations of Vestibular Rehabilitation: An Integrated Approach for Positive Functional Outcomes
5-day full-time Competency and Evidence-Based Course
**This course is currently being refreshed and restructured. It is not available at the moment. If you’d like to register interest for when it is offered again, please add your details to the form below.
Course Overview
Vertigo and dizziness are one of the most common complaints; in fact second to headache. They are not disease entities, but rather unspecific syndromes consisting of various disorders with different causes. Forty percent of adults experience significant dizziness at some time in their lives, and nearly one in four emergency room visits includes a complaint of dizziness. Even though dizziness is common, it remains a perplexing problem for most clinicians. It can be a symptom of disease in almost any organ system of the human body. The constellation of symptoms presented by patients with dizziness often seems complex. Furthermore, the same disorder may present differently, depending on the patient’s personality and his or her response to disease, lifestyle and age.
Many patients with dizziness have an abnormality related to vestibular function or to central nervous system processing of sensory information that is important for spatial orientation. The pathophysiology underlying a vestibular disorder is often baffling because vestibular physiology is grounded in physics and applied engineering. The combination of basic science and complex patient presentations makes the field of vestibular disorders challenging. However, diagnosing the aetiology of dizziness and implementing appropriate treatment is a skill that will benefit the clinician who encounters patients complaining of vertigo and dizziness or disequilibrium.
This unique 5-day full-time course emphasises the significant importance of the multi-disciplinary team approach for the dizzy patient; hence the involvement of different health disciplines in the course curriculum designed for graduate physiotherapists, occupational therapists, audiologists, general medical practitioners, and medical specialists who wish to develop an understanding of neuro-otology or elementary expertise in this field. If you have attended an Introductory Vestibular Rehabilitation Course you will find this 5-day course a natural progression. This course is a prerequisite for the Advanced Competency and Evidence-Based Course held by the Centre.
Faculty: You will have the unique privilege of the expertise and experience of world renown ENT specialist and neuro-otologist Dr John Tomich in private practice, Adelaide; Dr David Szmulewicz, neurologist and neuro-otologist at the Royal Ear and Eye Hospital, Melbourne; Dr Anthony Bevan, Specialist clinical psychologist in private practice, Adelaide, with unparallel experience with vestibular patients and psychological problems; Ms Amy Lennox, Senior audiologist, trained and worked in Britain in multi-disciplinary teams in leading Dizzy Centres, and currently Regional Manager GN Otometrics; Mr Dean Watson internationally recognised manual therapist and teacher in the assessment of the upper cervical spine in primary headache conditions and migraine, Director of the Watson Headache Clinic, Sydney and Adelaide; and Professor Dr Margie Sharpe, Director of the Dizziness & Balance Disorders Centre, Senior Vestibular consultant physiotherapist who not only pioneered Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy in Australia, and established the first physiotherapy practice for vestibular patients — Dizziness & Balance Disorders Centre in 1993 in Adelaide. She conducted also the inaugural APA 2-day Vestibular Rehabilitation Therapy course in Queensland in the early 1990’s. Professor Sharpe has been instrumental in promoting Vestibular Rehabilitation nationally and internationally to therapists, medical practitioners and medical specialists through lectures, seminars and courses throughout her professional academic and clinical career.
Pre-reading: All participants will be provided with published papers prior to the commencement of the course with the expectation these papers have been read.
Topics: Current clinical applied vestibular anatomy and physiology; multi-sensory integration; vestibular compensation, adaptation and plasticity, including clinical recovery from vestibular disorders; normal and abnormal eye movements, clinical examination and interpretation of findings; audiology and vestibular function tests; symptoms and examination of the patient with vertigo and dizziness; examination of the dizzy patient and interpretation of the findings; comprehensive battery of balance tests and rehabilitation approaches; single and recurrent episodes of vertigo – clinical features; pathophysiology of vestibular disorders (e.g.Vestibular neuritis, Benign Paroxysmal Positioning Vertigo, Meniere’s disease, Migraine, Vestibular schwannoma, peripheral and central traumatic forms of vertigo — BPPV, labyrinthine failure, perilymph fistula, superior canal dehiscence and concussion; differential diagnosis, natural course and treatment of these disorders; ototoxicity; dizziness, imbalance and falls in the elderly — diagnoses (e.g. drug-induced dizziness, orthostatic hypotension, vascular disorders, neurological disease, fear of falling, cardiac arrhythmia, orthopaedic disorders, small vessel ischaemia); psychology of vestibular dysfunction and disorders; multi-disciplinary approach to treatment and management of the vertiginous and dizzy patient; habituation versus adaptation exercises; VRT evaluation of functional outcomes – which questionnaire to use; differential diagnosis for cervicogenic, chronic subjective dizziness, non-specific dizziness and vestibular vertigo; multi-disciplinary approach to treatment and management of the acute and chronic patient with unilateral and bilateral vestibular loss/insufficiency; activities of daily living; when is a vestibular disorder a disability? What to do if you do not have a clue?
Course materials: Comprehensive lecture notes will be provided with extensive references and diagrams in a workbook given to participants on their arrival.
Teaching methodologies: Case study approach, small group discussion, patient presentations, skill-based classes, interactive instructional tools, tools to measure balance and balance training, infrared video-oculography, new video Head Impulse test, clinical decision-making.
Requirements: All participants are required to bring their laptop computer, tablet or iPad. After hours study is necessary.
Participants: Maximum number 12.
Examinations: All participants are required to sit a written and practical examination at the end of the course. Results will be mailed to participants within six weeks after completion of the course.
Awards: A Certificate of Achievement will be awarded to those participants who successfully pass the examinations with the total CPD hours.
Registration and Fees:
- A$2,500 (+ GST) = A$2,750.00.
- Electronic/fax registration – complete the registration form and return with payment in full.
- Closing date: TBA
- The fee includes course workbook, reading materials, light refreshments and lunches during the course.