Balance Off After COVID? It’s Actually a Thing!
The theme for this week … finding your balance
Is your ability to exercise impacted by a sense of instability or even a fear of falling? Poor balance can be a side effect from being sick, especially COVID. For children this instability may present as reluctance or refusal to participate. Read on …
Balance challenges following COVID
Finding yourself with questionable balance after being sick, especially COVID, is not just in your head.
Not just you …
Challenges to balance are more common than you’d expect following COVID. Apparently they were common enough for a study to be done, and here is the link.
Some of the findings include:
- Dizziness, not vertigo, was confirmed in 20% of the test group.
- The dizziness is suspected to impact older patients more.
- Balance rehabilitation should be considered for long term follow-up.
A statement in the paper is interesting, asserting that the dizziness may be permanent, since the condition persists past recovery. We don’t find that to be the case.
What can you do?
What we’ve seen at the Bridging® Institute is that our clients want good balance such that they can continue their exercise activities. There are two parts to taking action for relief:
- Assess: Determine if, and how, balance is actually impacted. This can be done with a Physical Therapist specializing in balance. Or, at The Bridging® Institute we do a more functional balance test.
- Targeted intervention: This can consist of specific exercises with a Physical Therapist. Or, Bridging® can be used to reset the specific aspects of the affected balance.
Once we use the Bridging® Technique to analyze and reset impacted micromovements, our clients’ are able to confidently return to their preferred activities.
Insight of the Week from Cara
Soapbox warning
In the world of physical activity media, the subject of balance training comes up from time to time. Movement professionals eagerly share their protocols and program ideas on how they work to improve balance.
But there is little specificity considered for understanding the underlying mechanics of exactly which aspect of balance is impaired. How do you know what to work on if you don’t understand the instability in finer detail? Drives me bonkers!
For example: You want to improve your golf game, so the pro tells you to practice more. Without further specifics how do you know you’re putting in time doing what will help?
There is a saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You need a more specific plan!
How does the Bridging® framework assess balance differently from others?
For balance, we take a nuts and bolts approach by looking at the simple relationship of discrete sway control in each plane of motion — forward/back, side to side, turning, and up/down.
We assess this in three progressively challenging ways:
- Sitting
- Standing
- Stepping (mini-lunge)
What we find is there is only one or two directions that are unstable, often lateral or rotational control. By resetting the related muscles, your balance changes instantaneously!
Why is balance off?
When we assess a client’s micromovement flows and transitions, the glitches we find are always related to the four usual suspects from your overall lifetime:
- Injuries
- Illness
- Medical interventions
- Early life/birth impacts
We use the gentle Bridging® reset process to restore the correct stabilizing patterns in the muscle groups impacting your balance. This can usually be accomplished in 2-3 sessions.