Office of Public Relations — Newsroom
News Release
For Immediate Release
Contacts: Tonya Ewers, UCDHSC, (303) 724-1520, Tonya.Ewers@uchsc.edu
University of Colorado Hospital is Recruiting Participants for a Positional Vertigo Study
Researchers are comparing the usefulness of two at-home exercises for patients
AURORA, Colo. (Oct. 24, 2007) - Physicians and audiologists at the University of Colorado Hospital are recruiting 100 participants for a study on a new exercise patients can do on their own at home to treat positional vertigo.
Vertigo is a medical condition that causes a spinning sensation and often, results in dizziness for patients. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV, is caused by a problem inside the ear that causes episodes resembling the world spinning around a patient. BPPV can come and go but usually comes back if not treated.
"BPPV is a disease that occurs when tiny crystals accidentally move from the gravity sensor into a nearby spinning sensor in the inner ear," said Carol Foster, MD, the principal investigator for the study and a neuro-otologist at the University of Colorado Hospital's audiology clinic. The sensation stops when the crystals move back into the gravity sensor, but this can take months. People who suffer from vertigo are given exercises to help relieve the symptoms. We have tested this new exercise for six months and believe it to be safer and easier to use as a home exercise than the one we were using prior to this.
Study participants will be taught an exercise to treat vertigo and will be instructed to use it at home if the symptoms come back. Half of the participants will be assigned to a group that will learn an old exercise for treating vertigo; the remaining participants will be taught the new exercise. Participants will be assigned to one of the two exercises at random.
All treatments for vertigo cause dizziness, nausea and a loss of balance similar to the symptoms of the disease. The symptoms usually last a few seconds or minutes, but may last longer. All of the tests and treatments done as part of the care for the patients will be billed to the patients or their insurance companies. There is no charge for the time used to teach the study exercise.
While there is no guarantee that the study will improve the symptoms of vertigo for the participants, it may reduce the need to visit the doctor for vertigo-related problems.
Vertigo patients that are interested in participating in the study should contact Kathleen Zaccaro at (720) 848-2845. Patients who are not interested in participating in the study but would like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Foster for the treatment of vertigo can contact the University of Colorado Hospital's audiology practice at (720) 848-2800.
The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center is one of three universities in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver, on the Auraria Campus, at Ninth & Colorado Blvd. and on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., UCDHSC is Colorado's premier research university offering more than 100 degrees and programs in 12 schools and colleges and serving more than 28,000 students in Metro Denver and online. For more information, visit the web site at www.ucdhsc.edu or the UCDHSC Newsroom at http://www.uchsc.edu/news.
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