Paul Silovsky here—physical therapist and owner of Rebound Physical Therapy. I’m here today to demystify loss of balance, explain common causes, and suggest remedies.
This article focuses specifically on balance loss, as opposed to dizziness or vertigo, which have varying underlying causes. With age, loss of balance increases the risk of falling and subsequent injuries. Therefore, addressing balance issues early in life is crucial.
Understanding What Keeps Your Body Balanced
There are several systems responsible for keeping you upright, including your center of gravity, your joints, your muscles, your nervous system, and your vestibular system.
These systems work together to keep your center of gravity— located in and around your belly button—within your base of support (the area your feet come in contact with when standing). Your balance is affected by how wide or narrow your base of support is and how well you maintain your center of balance within your base of support. In other words, when your center of gravity extends outside your base of support, you lose your balance and risk falling, landing on the ground, and causing an injury.
Beyond your center of gravity, your muscles, joints, nervous system, and vestibular system work together to support your balance. First, you have to maintain a certain amount of strength in your muscles to support the integrity of your joints. Second, your nervous system provides feedback from your environment—the ground and your position in space. Your nervous system’s interpretation of your body in relation to your environment is affected by your vestibular system—including your eyes, ears, and middle ear—which can make you feel dizzy and unsteady. All of these elements are working together.
Understanding Causes of Imbalance
There are many things that may affect and cause loss of balance. Your nervous system, for example, may be affected by injuries, illness, surgeries, and medications, impacting your ability to stay upright and operate in a balanced fashion.
Comparatively, your balance may be affected by physical ailments. At Rebound Physical Therapy, we attend to many patients with orthopedic conditions, such as ankle injuries or knee surgeries. For example, if a patient sprains a ligament in their ankle or tears their anterior cruciate ligament— the ligament in the center of the knee—these “crisscross” ligaments have a rotational element, which provides great stability to the leg.Their balance is tremendously affected. Even if these ligaments are reconstructed or replaced, the body’s ability to correct its position in space and support the body’s balance is damaged.
This is where Rebound physical therapists come in!
How Physical Therapy Can Improve and Recover Your Balance
Our physical therapists will “train” this patient’s afflicted area to repair itself from the inside out. These types of injuries do not just damage the soft tissue structures and the joints, they affect the body’s ability to correct itself. We refer to this “training” process as righting reactions.
The physical therapists at Rebound Physical Therapy treat our parents so they can stay upright and keep moving. We live in a motion-based universe. As long as we keep moving, we have the opportunity to experience life to the fullest. Your Rebound physical therapist will ensure you maintain your strength, your posture, your balance, and your flexibility—four important elements to functioning in everyday life.
In conclusion, Rebound physical therapists can help you not only keep the balance you have, but recover from balance loss issues when you experience them. If you start to lose your balance, start to feel unsteady, or undergo an injury or surgery and find yourself feeling a little unsteady, come see one of our physical therapists. We can help you recover your balance through your muscular systems, your joints, and your neurologic system. This is a collective approach to keep you upright, keep you moving, and doing the things you love.
We would love to get you back in action! Book your screening online here, or call 785-260-8714.
