Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/mo3bu81XTS0   If you’re struggling with balance problems due to an accident, an injury, or advancing age, that VR headset laying around the house or on the store shelf may just be the key to your recovery.  Balance specialists and physiotherapists at Sweden’s Lund University now report their results using a virtual reality environment to help subjects train their balance systems.    Patients with chronic balance system issues often begin to rely almost exclusively on visual input to stabilize their stance.   By repeatedly practicing stabilizing themselves on a postural stability platform while immersed in a VR roller coaster ride, the 20 experimental subjects were able to deploy the non-visual balance sensors in their muscles, joints, and ears to better reach a state of balance equilibration.     The average number of near fall events diminished 10-fold after 5 VR rides by the female subjects.  The males experienced fewer fall events overall but enjoyed a similar pattern of improv