A doctor at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario has developed an iPhone application to treat a common form of vertigo, a disorder that leaves sufferers feeling like they're spinning every time they turn their heads.
Dr. Matt Bromwich, an ear, nose and throat surgeon at CHEO, has spent years trying to determine a solution to treat Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo or BBPV, a disorder caused by problems in the inner ear.
Those with the condition have problems with tiny calcium crystals inside their inner ears. In healthy people, the crystals (or "ear rocks" as they're sometimes called) are distributed evenly in the ear's three inner canals, and stimulate nerve cells to tell the brain in what direction the head is moving.
But in those with BPPV, the particles have broken loose and clump together in one of the canals. Sufferers often feel dizzy and nauseous every time they move their heads. Ten per cent of people over the age 60 will get BPPV and about 20 to 40 per cent of all people will experience some kind of vertigo problem (not necessarily BPPV) in their life.
The condition can be treated with a technique called the Epley Manoeuvre. It is usually performed by a doctor who directs a patient how to move his head in a specified sequence of timed motions, to guide the particles away from the nerve endings in the inner ear.
However, performing the manoeuvre is not easy. So Bromwich developed the smartphone application to help guide the procedure. It's called DizzyFix and it's available for $14.99 on iTunes.
The patient simply places the iPhone on his or her forehead, and the doctor starts the app. The program directs the patient and doctor through the proper moves, making sure the angle of the head movement is exactly right and is done at the correct pace. If the patient is in the wrong position, the phone will beep.
"What the application is going to do is tell me how to move the head in order to move particles of material that are in the ear," said Bromwich.
The whole process only takes a couple of minutes and most patients are delighted with the results.
"It really is astonishing when you find the patient has been living with this condition for months or years and I tell them after the two-minute treatment that you are cured, it really is phenomenal for both the doctor and the patient," Bromwich reports.
Bromwich notes that the condition can return after several months, but the same treatment can provide the same relief.
Bromwich believes the iPhone application may be the first real treatment method loaded on a smartphone -- and he already has plans to improve it. He says with more doctors using smartphones, the devices can become another way to help doctors treat patients.
Clearwater Clinical, the medical techonology company that helped develop the iPhone app, says they're now planning application for other smartphone platforms.
"However, we recognized the iPhone market was the most immediate opportunity to bring DizzyFIX iPhone to into the hands of doctors dealing with this problem on a daily basis," said Dr. Alp Sener, Clearwater Clinical's CEO.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Paul Brent
