Urbandale, IA · Services
Vestibular therapy in Urbandale.
Specialized care for dizziness, imbalance, and an unsteady gait: a cause-first evaluation of the balance system, hands-on treatment, and a plan with an endpoint.
What is vestibular therapy in Urbandale?
Vestibular therapy treats the balance system, the inner ear and its connections to your eyes, neck, and brain, when it stops sending or processing signals correctly. That’s what shows up as dizziness, a spinning sensation, unsteadiness on your feet, or a gait that’s started to feel unreliable, especially in the dark or on uneven ground.
The evaluation here is specific to that system: tests of eye movement, head position, and balance under different conditions, done one-on-one with a Doctor of Physical Therapy trained in vestibular rehabilitation. The goal is to find which part of the system is misfiring, not to hand you generic balance exercises and hope something sticks.
Care still moves through the same four named phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, adapted to a balance system instead of a joint. The plan has an endpoint named at your evaluation: fewer symptoms, steadier movement, and a return to the activities dizziness has made you avoid.
Calm it down.
Hands-on treatment begins at the first visit. You leave understanding what’s actually going on, and you feel a difference early.
Restore what’s stuck.
Targeted mobility work for the joints and tissue actually holding you back, dosed to your body, not a printed sheet.
Build strength you trust.
Progressive load against standards you have to clear before moving on. Confidence, here, is a training effect.
Make it stay fixed.
Testing before you’re cleared, then a keep-it-gone program sized to your real week. Then we graduate you.
What conditions does vestibular therapy treat?
Vestibular therapy is a narrow specialty built around one system, so it treats a narrower list, but it treats it in depth. What it commonly addresses:
Left untreated, balance problems tend to shrink your world quietly: fewer trips out after dark, a hand always on the counter, activities you’ve quietly stopped doing instead of actually getting fixed.
What does a vestibular therapy session look like?
The first visit is a specialized evaluation: a history of when symptoms started and what triggers them, then hands-on testing of eye movement, head position, and balance, including brief maneuvers that may briefly reproduce dizziness on purpose, because that’s how the system is tested.
Every visit after builds on that finding: specific eye and head exercises, balance retraining on different surfaces, and gait work, all dosed to where you are in the phase. Your doctor stays with you the whole visit, both to guide the exercises and to keep you safe while your balance system is being challenged.
Who this is for, and who it isn’t.
Vestibular therapy tends to fit people whose dizziness, spinning, or unsteadiness has a movement or inner-ear component: symptoms triggered by rolling over in bed, turning the head quickly, or standing up too fast, or a gait that’s felt less reliable since an inner-ear event, a concussion, or simply getting older.
The people who benefit most are usually the ones who’ve been told their tests are normal and their dizziness is just something to live with, when a targeted evaluation often finds something specific and treatable.
It’s not the right first stop for sudden, severe dizziness with other neurological symptoms (slurred speech, facial drooping, sudden severe headache) or chest pain, which need emergency care first. It’s also not a substitute for a medical workup ruling out cardiac or other non-vestibular causes of dizziness.
Good fit
- Dizziness triggered by rolling over, turning the head, or standing up fast
- Unsteadiness or a gait that’s felt less reliable since an event or with age
- Told your tests are normal but symptoms persist
- Ready for an evaluation that may briefly reproduce dizziness on purpose
Not the right first stop
- Sudden, severe dizziness with slurred speech, facial drooping, or sudden severe headache (seek emergency care)
- Chest pain accompanying dizziness (seek emergency care)
- A medical workup for cardiac or other non-vestibular causes that hasn’t happened yet
It’s a specialized track inside the same standard of care, never a separate practice.
“I am very thankful for the help I am receiving at Kaizen Health & Wellness. I started PT there 5-6 weeks ago after an injury and have already noticed real improvement.”Tami P. · Google review
Questions, answered plainly.
No. IA allows direct access to physical therapy, which means you can book a vestibular evaluation without seeing another provider first. If your insurance requires a referral for reimbursement, we’ll flag that during your benefits check and help you get one before it holds anything up.
Sometimes, briefly. Testing the vestibular system sometimes means moving the head or eyes in a way that reproduces the exact sensation you came in with, for a few seconds at a time. Your Doctor of Physical Therapy explains each test before doing it and stops if you need a break.
Those providers are often the right first stop for ruling out a medical cause. Vestibular therapy is what usually comes next, or alongside: hands-on, movement-based retraining of the balance system itself, done one-on-one with a Doctor of Physical Therapy trained in vestibular rehabilitation, once serious causes have been ruled out.
It depends on the cause, not a formula. Your evaluation gives you a specific estimate, and care moves through four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, each with its own criteria for moving on, so the length of your plan tracks your progress rather than a preset schedule.
Start with the evaluation that finds what’s misfiring.
Put it in writing.
Five short questions. A real person calls you back, usually within two business hours, with times that fit your week.
The people who end up filling this out are rarely in the worst pain of their life. They’re just done working around it, done picking the errand that doesn’t require the stairs. If that’s the stage you’re at, this is the part where you stop researching and start.
Consider it filed.
A real person will call you back, usually within two business hours, with appointment times that fit your week. Keep your phone nearby.
Can’t wait? Call (515) 207-2450 ⟶Easy to find. Easy to park.
In the neighborhood, with parking by the door. Come see the place before you commit, if you like.
The clinic · Kaizen Health and Wellness
Get Directions ⟶Opens in Google Maps