Have you ever felt suddenly dizzy and unsteady on your feet while going about your normal day? While dizziness is relatively common, true vertigo is rarer, but its effects can be debilitating. The good news is that working with a physical therapist in Queens, NY, can help ease your symptoms and get you back to normal.
In fact, seeking physical therapy after a car accident may be especially helpful if you’re dealing with dizziness after a head or neck injury.
Dizziness Often Starts in Your Inner Ear
An issue in your vestibular system typically causes vertigo (a false sense of motion) and dizziness.
This system is in the inner ear and works with the eyes, muscles, joints, and brain to help you understand where your body is in space. When it’s disrupted, the information reaching the brain may not align with what the eyes or body are reporting. That mismatch can create the spinning sensation of vertigo or a feeling of being off balance.
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV, accounts for approximately 42% of vertigo diagnoses. BPPV occurs when canaliths, the tiny calcium crystals in the inner ear, break loose and shift, causing dizziness.
Although the American Journal of Medicine reports that about 14.8% of the population experiences dizziness or balance issues, vehicle accidents are also a common cause of these issues. A car crash can place sudden forces on the vestibular system, possibly dislodging the crystals and contributing to ongoing dizziness.
What Is Vestibular Rehabilitation?
Vestibular rehabilitation is a form of physical therapy treatment designed to help people manage dizziness, vertigo, and balance problems. Cleveland Clinic notes that vestibular therapy can be used for conditions ranging from BPPV and vestibular neuritis to migraine, traumatic brain injury, and other causes of balance dysfunction.
Vestibular rehabilitation gives the brain opportunities to adapt to inner ear changes that might not return to how they were before the accident.
A therapist evaluates your balance and movement patterns, as well as your response to head movements, to develop an exercise plan. Physical therapy for dizziness after a car accident might look different from routine treatment for a sore shoulder or aching back, as it’s built around what your nervous system needs to relearn: a steady gaze, steady footing, and confidence moving through space.
Gaze stabilization exercises involve moving your head while keeping your eyes locked on a fixed point. Over repeated sessions, this retrains the connection between your eyes and inner ear so the world stops lurching every time you turn your head.
From there, treatment extends to balance and coordination work to challenge your system just enough to force adaptation. Exercises focus on things like standing on uneven surfaces or shifting your weight in ways that don’t make you dizzy.
Canalith repositioning maneuvers, like the Epley maneuver, address BPPV by guiding displaced inner ear crystals back to where they belong. These maneuvers can often resolve symptoms in one or two sessions. For dizziness rooted in whiplash or concussion, physical therapy after a car accident tends to run longer and blends neck mobility work with the vestibular exercises.
These vestibular exercises can feel unusual at first and may briefly reproduce mild symptoms. That doesn’t mean they aren’t working. The goal is controlled exposure, not pushing through severe symptoms.
Research supports the value of vestibular rehabilitation. A Cochrane review of 39 studies involving 2,441 participants found a significant benefit of vestibular rehabilitation compared with control or no intervention in reducing the frequency of dizziness. Another study of people with chronic dizziness found that 67% of patients receiving vestibular rehabilitation reported clinically significant improvement after three months, compared with 38% of those receiving usual medical care.
How Long Does Vestibular Rehabilitation Take With a Physical Therapist in Queens, NY?
There’s no universal timeline for physical therapy after a car accident. Some people notice improvement quickly, while others need a longer rehabilitation period.
That said, Cleveland Clinic reports that many patients show improvement after six to eight weekly sessions.
Consistency matters, too. Your therapist may give you exercises to practice at home between appointments. NYU Langone specifically encourages home practice because repeating the exercises can support rehabilitation.
When Should You Seek Help for Dizziness?
Occasional lightheadedness can have a simple explanation, but recurring dizziness or vertigo deserves attention, particularly when it interferes with daily activities. It may not be a vestibular issue, as other conditions (such as stroke or infection) or certain medications can cause similar symptoms.
If dizziness began after an accident, mention the timing to your healthcare provider. Physical therapy after a car accident may involve more than treating pain when balance or visual symptoms are also present. A qualified physical therapist in Queens, NY, can evaluate movement and determine whether vestibular treatment may be appropriate.
Get Physical Therapy in Queens, NY, for Help With Vertigo
Dizziness doesn’t have to become something you learn to live with. With the right evaluation and a personalized plan, physical therapy after a car accident may help. JPM Physical Therapy P.C. builds every plan around getting you steady on your feet again.
Reach out to one of our convenience locations to make an appointment for physical therapy for balance problems and figure out the best next step. Our doctors accept most insurance plans, including workers’ compensation, no-fault, and PIP (personal injury protection). Same-day appointments may be available.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re curious about vestibular rehabilitation, we can help.
Is Vestibular Rehabilitation Painful?
It can feel uncomfortable during certain exercises since you’re intentionally provoking mild dizziness to train your brain’s adaptation response, but it shouldn’t be painful.
Can a Car Accident Cause Vertigo Weeks Later?
Yes. Whiplash symptoms don’t always show up immediately; inflammation and inner-ear disruption can take days or even weeks to surface fully.
Can I Have Vestibular Therapy After a Car Accident?
Physical therapy after a car accident and vestibular rehabilitation may be helpful for dizziness or balance problems that develop after an accident, depending on the cause and medical evaluation.
