Balance & Gait Disorders
Your ability to balance and the way you walk are closely related. Your proprioception, postural stability, and mobility are key factors in steady walking or running. We can help you feel more confident with your balance to decrease fall risk, and to enhance your sport performance.
Gait & Difficulty walking
If walking has been getting more difficult, or if you’ve changed the way you walk due to an injury, your compensations are likely to cause increased pain or injury in another part of your body. Walking with a limp, bent forward, or even just landing a bit harder on one foot can lead to a more limiting injury. Learning how to walk symmetrically even when injured will improve healing time of your current injury and decrease chances of sustaining more pain elsewhere.
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Understanding normal gait mechanics
By understanding and feeling what your body is supposed to do when you walk it becomes easier to walk more properly, without pain. Through simple awareness exercises you will become aware of how your body should move, and what parts are not moving properly. This makes it easy to correct dysfunctional gait patterns and easier for you to maintain the proper mechanics.
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Unable to walk upright without pain
It’s common to see someone leaning forward when walking, usually either with or due to back pain. Certainly this may be temporarily relieving but also creates increased tension, overworked muscles, and abnormal forces on your spine, hips, and knees. Hip flexor and pectoralis releases along with gait retraining help improve this posture more quickly than most may imagine.
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Unsteadiness while walking
Unsteadiness, swaying, shuffling, ataxia, drifting, drop foot, or apprehensive gait are typically caused by either musculoskeletal or neurological issues.
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Vision
If your eyes are the main issue we typically refer to an eye doctor- but we are able to train you to prepare for changes in lighting or obstructed vision. It is also common that people are afraid or unable to look down or to the side due to mobility issues with their neck that may lead to a fall or loss of balance.
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Vestibular
Your vestibular system is a delicate collection of fluid-filled chambers and sensory nerves, located in the inner ear. Some common vestibular conditions resulting in balance disorders include: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) BPPV occurs when calcium debris often referred to as crystals breaks off in the inner ear, this causes the feeling of spinning or nausea. Various neurological issues including Parkinson’s disease, brain injury, or stroke may affect the vestibular system and coordination.
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Proprioception
With principles from awareness through movement (a Feldenkrais method) you can quickly relearn now to sense changes in movement, body position, and even feel the ground better than before. People often say they feel more grounded, feel more of the ground, and more stable after a Feldenkrais method even when improving balance isn’t the main goal.
Balance
Your sense of balance is distributed through three systems: vision, vestibular, and proprioception.
Difficulty seeing, perceiving depth, or dim lighting can decrease your ability to balance. Your vestibular system is composed of fluid and sensors in your inner ear that detect changes in position relative to gravity, this is basically your ability to know which way is up.
Proprioception with regards to balance entails your ability to feel the floor, sense, and correct for changes in density or friction of the surface you’re walking on. All three systems can be improved with physical therapy.
