A patient with head pain and stiff leftward gaze does a thumb-fixation drill while turning his head. The clinician slows the movement and speeds up the leftward turn to reduce imbalance, showing how adjusting VOR exercise tempo can unlock restricted motion.
So we started testing some rotation movements and those were okay, but when we turned his head, he noticed, oh yeah, my head always hurts. I don't look as far to the left when I go that way. So I started thinking, okay, let's look at the horizontal canal in the vestibular system because that tells your brain, hey, the head's moving in that direction. So we did an exercise called a VOR. So we put a thumb out in front of him and he just started to turn his head to the left. Just like this, keeping his eyes on the thumb the whole time. Now again, that started to make him feel a little bit unbalanced. It wasn't as bad of a result as it was with the bouncing. So again, we slowed it down. We just did nice and slow there, and even slower on the way back. A little bit faster to the left, a little bit slower back. And we found that that started to make him again assess a little bit better.
Stop Stretching Your Neck. Try This Instead (It Might Improve Your Vision Too)
