Story provided courtesy of Toby Brown
More than 40 percent of the American population will experience dizziness at least once in their lifetime.
The Carmi Kiwanians now know more about the causes and treatments following Thursday’s program, which featured Mary Esche and Chelsea Wenderoth from Wabash Christian Therapy and Medical Clinic in Carmi.
Esche and Wenderoth are part of the occupational therapy team at Wabash, which specializes in the treatment of vestibular deficits, better known as vertigo or dizziness.
“We’ve had patients drive nearly an hour to see our team because they have had friends or family members find resolution through our treatments,” said Esche.
The most common peripheral vestibular disorder is benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV. This type of dizziness is caused by the small crystals or otoconia in the ear canals being dislodged.
There are many reasons why vertigo occurs, but many times it is spontaneous in nature. People who have fallen or have a long-standing history of ear infections or ear problems are at a higher risk for vertigo. People with vertigo typically describe it as feeling like they are spinning, tilting, swaying, unbalanced, pulled to one direction, swimming, feeling nauseated, or experiencing jerking eye movements, headache, sweating and/or ringing in the ears.
The team at Wabash Christian Therapy uses several tests to evaluate and determine the root cause of an individual’s dizziness, and Wenderoth demonstrated a couple of those tests on Kiwanians Chris Myers and Caleb Hughes.
Therapy can help eliminate the need for medication for dizziness and can improve balance, minimize falls, decrease subjective sensations of dizziness, improve stability during locomotion, reduce over-dependency on visual and somatosensory inputs, improve neuromuscular coordination, and decrease anxiety and somatization due to vestibular disorientation.
Wabash Christian Therapy and Medical Clinic offers free dizziness screenings the last Tuesday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Appointments are not necessary.
Esche also spoke about the expansion the clinic is currently undergoing. She said she expects the work to be complete sometime in September. The facility will grow to around 3,500 square feet once the project is finished.
In addition to the building expansion, the staff is also expanding, as Carmi native Darcie (Marshall) Lakins was recently hired as outreach coordinator. Two additional therapists have also been hired recently.
In club business, an inter-club from McLeansboro was present for the meeting and brought along a gift: a banner that accompanies the Kiwanis Lt. Governor. Carmi’s Jim Davis is the current Lt. Governor for this area.
President Alan Saunders reported that he is still working on trying to secure a musical act as the headliner for Corn Days and jokingly asked the group, “Is Slim Whitman still alive?”
