Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: A Case Study

Original Editor - Ben Chang as part of the Queen's University Neuromotor Function Project Top Contributors - Stephanie Pilon, Ben Chang, Adam Hanton-Fong, Cindy John-Chu, Rishika Babburu, Chris Sweeney, Connor DAngelo, Brooke Chamberland and Uchechukwu Chukwuemeka

Client Characteristics

The patient is a 55 year old male who lives a relatively sedentary lifestyle and works as an accountant. He has high blood pressure which has been controlled by 40mg of Diovan daily. The patient also has high cholesterol in which he takes 5mg of crestor daily to help control. The patient enjoys gardening, driving with his wife and walking his dog. He complains of nausea, dizziness and the feeling of the room spinning. He is planning on retiring and is nervous about not being able to do what he wants and enjoy his retirement because of his symptoms. He first noticed symptoms 2 weeks ago while turning his head quickly while driving. Following the onset, medications did not help symptoms and therefore he has since been getting treatment for BPPV. Sleeping has become increasingly difficult as any time he lays down he begins to feel dizzy.

Clinical Hypothesis

Problem List

Goals:

Short-term Goals:

• The pt wants to go 48 hours without any provocation of symptoms by the second week of treatment (14 days post-treatment).
• The patient wants to improve his dynamic gait index score to 20 by the 10th-day post-treatment.

Long-term Goals:

• Pt wants to be able to drive to work without feeling dizzy checking his blindspots (30 min drive) in 6 weeks.
• Pt wants to be able to play fetch with his dog for 20 minutes without an onset of symptoms from picking up the ball in 8 weeks.