THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080559
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
The problem seemed more of a nuisance than anything else.
Whenever Pat Jackson, 54, lay down she became dizzy. Sometimes her ears felt clogged and it was hard to hear, but it was mostly the dizziness that bothered her.
One doctor thought her problem was her aerobics exercises, that she was upsetting her inner ear by jumping up and down so much. Jackson thought it might be hay fever.
The correct answer came from a specialist at the region's latest hearing and balance center who found and removed a benign, marble-sized tumor growing amid the web of nerves inside her head, behind her right ear.
The diagnosis was a textbook example of what the Eastern Virginia Medical School and the DePaul Medical Center hope their newly created Hearing and Balance Center will routinely achieve: the correct diagnosis of traditionally hard-to-diagnose disorders of the inner ear.
The Norfolk center is at least partly a response to a competitive challenge from a nearby rival. In February, the Atlantic Coast Ear Specialists opened its own Dizziness and Balance Disorder Center on First Colonial Road in Virginia Beach.
The Virginia Beach dizziness center is run by Dr. Richard Prass, and Howard Gutnick, an audiologist, both of whom taught at the medical school and left to start their own venture.
The medical school recruited Dr. Barry Strasnick to be director of its department of otolaryngology. He and John T. Jacobson, a medical school audiologist, run the DePaul center. There are plenty of potential customers. Partial or complete hearing loss is estimated to affect more than 23 million Americans, making it among the nation's most common disabilities.
Figures for Hampton Roads are not available but estimates are that thousands of local residents have either hearing or balance disorders of one kind or another.
``There's more than enough dizzy people in Hampton Roads for both groups to survive and make a profit,'' said Michele Royston of the Virginia Beach company. ``We have been in business since 1992, and we have over 2,500 charts. Over half of them are probably dizzy,'' she said.
Balance problems are thought to be the second most common complaint, after lower back pain, but they can be notoriously difficult to diagnose and treat, medical school officials said. Any number of disorders can cause balance problems, from inner-ear disease or heart disease to tumors. But because many patients never receive a conclusive diagnosis, they never receive proper care.
In the past 10 years, there have been advances in treating hearing loss, including improved diagnostic methods, more efficient hearing aids and implants that allow the deaf to hear a limited range of sounds.
The new centers offer people with hearing and balance problems a kind of one-stop shopping for advanced diagnostics equipment and professional help.
Strasnick said: ``Many times people are misdiagnosed because there are so many things that can cause it.''
The medical school's center makes use of a range of new and old technology, including an unusual ``platform posturography device.'' It's about the size of a phone booth and analyzes three areas involved in balance: the inner ear, vision and what physicians call ``proprioception,'' the unconscious sensations from the skin and joints that create a conscious awareness of posture, movement and position.
For some patients, balance disorders are a minor annoyance, but in many they can be maddening, even debilitating.
``If you're dizzy for two or three years and you're told it's stress, or it's hormones, and you've never been diagnosed, you begin to think you're crazy,'' Royston said. ``You start to isolate yourself, like you're the only person in the world who would feel like this.''
For Jackson, the prospect of unending dizziness frustrated her. When a doctor told her to drop aerobics, she was annoyed.
``I would have been devastated if I could not exercise,'' she said. ``I love my workouts. I'm doing great now. I can't believe how good I feel.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Dr. Barry Strasnick, director of the department of otolaryngology at
Eastern Virginia Medical School, with some of the special equipment
used at the Hearing and Balance Center to test inner-ear functions.
Graphics
For more information, contact the Vestibular Disorders Association,
P.O. Box 4467, Portland, Ore., 97208-4467, or call toll-free at
(800) 837-8428. For the hearing impaired, there is a TTY number:
(503) 228-8665.
A local support group meets on the first Monday of each month at 7
p.m. in the Tidewater Health Care Education Building on the grounds
of Virginia Beach General Hospital.
DIZZINESS FACTS
Partial or complete hearing loss will affect more than 23 million
Americans, and this year more than 5 million will see a doctor
complaining of dizziness.
An estimated one in three people in Hampton Roads will experience a
balance problem in their lifetimes.
Balance-related falls account for more than one-half of accidental
deaths of the elderly.
Blows to the head and whiplash are frequent causes of balance and
dizziness disorders.
The cost in medical care to patients with balance disorders is
estimated at more than $1 billion nationwide.
by CNB