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Welcome to the Vestibular disorder.com
My name is Gordon Johnson. I'm an attorney who spends his entire practice
representing those with brain injuries.
We're talking about the vestibular system. We're talking about disorders of
balance
dizziness and vertigo. The vestibular system
I guess is by most people's thought of as the system that provides us with
the ability to stand upright, to have balance.
Although in reality the vestibular system is something else.
The vestibular system is actually the system of our brain
and its I'll adjacent structures
and nerve pathways that allow our
eyes to focus when our head is moving. I'm holding my camera.
The reason I'm holding my camera is that
I want you to picture what what happened to my camera
or the the photograph I were to take if I was going to waive my camera around
while I took a picture.Now I'm gonna move my head around like I would move this
camera around.
Even though I move my head around I can still focus
on that camera that's video taping me. I can turn my head
and I can still focus on that camera. I can run down a football field
and still catch a pass. Probably not as well as I once did. But I still could
probably catch a frisbee anyway.
The reason I can do that is that
inside of our brain is something called the vestibules.
The inner ears canals. In these canals are little hairs
and these little hairs have a way of sensing when I move my head.
And what the net result of that is
when they sense that I'm moving my head they create
a perfectly counter balancing reflex
that makes my eyes stay stable
with the object I'm focusing on even though my head is moving.
Well our eyes work like a camera, Our minds really work like a computer.
Our minds actually have something that is essentially equivalent to ram.
RAM is random access memory.
It is that limitation of our computer in terms of how many different things you
can do it once.
And as most if you've ever worked with downloading
a still camera image, that anything that's visual
requires a whole lot more memory and a whole lot lot more RAM
then something that's just text. Most of our thoughts
are basically equivalent to a text message on your computer.
In contrast those things that we see
those things that requires two process visual information
are far more demanding a our brain's ability to attend
Now as I look at the camera as I keep my head still
and focus on that camera I am requiring more
of my attenional capacity to focus then
to do other simpler task but when I start to move my head
I am now not dealing with this still image
I am now dealing with the movie image that must run
from my eyes into my brain
process the information from the inner ear and run it back through.
And when the brain is operating properly the vestibular system is operating
properly
that is done in the background
just like our computers
operating systems run in the background. But when it's not
running efficiently when it's not running properly
what we're required to do is transpose bad information into something we can
use.
thus people who have a malfunctioning vestibular system can walk.
People with a malfunctioning vestibular system can ride in a moving
car
but what happens is it terribly taxes
their ability to attend. It completely eliminates their ability
to multitask and of course as anybody who has a significant vestibular
disorder will tell you
you get sick to your stomach like if you were watching a movie camera that someone
had done
pointing the movie camera like this. Scanning around the room
And picture it in a moving car