“You don”™t have to live with it,” vestibular therapist Maureen Brann says about vertigo.
The Brewster resident divides her career time between the newly refurbished physical therapy department at Hudson Valley Hospital Center in Cortlandt Manor and its Hopewell Junction facility on Route 82.
The therapist recalls the man who had been experiencing dizziness for 10 years, walking with a cane. “He was suffering from benign positional paroxysmal vertigo,” Brann said. “This is when crystals are dislodged in the inner ear. After a few treatments he got rid of his cane and resumed going to the store and other normal activities.”
Before having her patients do exercises themselves, Brann demonstrates what they will be doing. She also prescribes exercises to be done at home between sessions and for maintenance after “graduation.”
She gives a great deal of credit for her successes to the equipment that she has at her disposal. A Biodex machine offers challenges to patients and gives visual feedback so that progress can be measured from month to month. A Wii video game challenges balance and strength and also gives feedback. “It”™s a financially reasonable way to continue to work out at home,” Brann said.
Teaching skills, refined throughout her career, come into play when instructing patients on their maintenance exercises to be done at home. Most are faithful to the routine. “There”™s a lot at stake for them. The treatments and exercises are not associated with pain, which is a nice thing.”
Brann confesses to two frustrations in her line of work. “A lot of individuals suffering from vertigo don”™t know that treatments are available and some doctors may not be aware.
“Dizziness can be a symptom of other problems, such as heart attack or stroke, so the important thing is when you feel something you have not experienced before, go see a physician.”
The other frustration that Brann faces is the realization that there are some patients whom she can only partially help. “I hate it when I have to tell patients that they may not get it all back.”
Brann was on the ground floor of introducing vestibular therapy at the Hudson Valley Hospital Center. Raised in Franklin Square, Long Island, she studied at the Allied Health Professions Division of the State University of New York”™s Downstate facility, earning a bachelor”™s degree in physical therapy. A master”™s degree in exercise physiology followed from the City College of New York.
Working at facilities in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Nassau County, she did physical therapy with patients suffering neurological disorders, spinal cord injuries and amputations. Her resume includes work with patients at Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center.
While she was working initially as a physical therapist at Hudson Valley Hospital Center, a patient showed her a pamphlet on what appeared to be “an unappreciated type of therapy,” as she terms vestibular therapy. She received training at the University of Miami and became certified in the field, returning to the hospital as a pioneer in the field. Anxious to educate the public about treatments, she draws attention to a website, www.vestibular.org.
Her husband, Thomas Brann, is water foreman for the village of Croton-on-Hudson. They lived in Mahopac before moving to Brewster with their children, Kelly, 10, and Erin, 8. There she tends a garden. The family keeps a boat on Long Island”™s south shore and in the winter goes skiing in Vermont or upstate New York.
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be e-mailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.
Thank you for your continued efforts to help those of us with vestibular disorders. My PT told me that there was nothing else he could do for me and it is heart wrenching but there are people that it works for and it is worth it for anyone to give it a try. The future hopefully holds even more knowledge and a cure for those of us who live our lives dizzy.
I was treated at HVHC by Maureen’s wonderful PT collegue Bart for BPPV which was debilitating last summer. It took 4 MD’s before a neurologist diagnosed me in 5 min with BBPV. He prescribed vestibular therapy at HVHC. Bart was such a wonderfully compassionate PT. he spoke of Maureen and her vast experience in thevestibular field and they consulted on my course of therapy. I am so grateful that this therapy was available at Hudson Valley Hospital and that there is a dedicated team there to help restore paitents stricken with BPPV a chance receive the therapy that puts them back to normal. I am a mother with two small children, and also a student. Getting to Bart, Maureen’s collegue, got me functioning totally back to normal within a few weeks and able to resume my studies. vestibular therapy works!!!!!!