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CrowdScience: Why do we experience vertigo?

Discussion & Talk

Why do we experience vertigo?

07/07/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why do we experience vertigo?

Anand Jagatia finds out why we lose our sense of balance

CrowdScience listener Ali wants to know what causes vertigo. Anand Jagatia discovers the reasons why we lose our sense of balance, from being in high places to physical illnesses.

CrowdScience listener Ali wants to know why we experience vertigo.  

Anand Jagatia finds out that it’s not just the giddy sensation we feel when we’re at the top of a mountain. Vertigo is also a physical illness that can be triggered by a range of disorders. 

He talks to leading experts on balance to learn what causes the condition, discovers how virtual reality can help people with a phobia of being in high places and volunteers to be turned upside down to experience what it feels like to be treated for vertigo. 

Contributors: 

Peter Rea, consultant ENT surgeon, University Hospitals of Leicester, Honorary Professor of Balance Medicine, De Montfort University, Honorary Professor in Life Sciences, University of Leicester, UK 
Tammy Barker, clinical scientist, Balance Centre, Leicester Royal Infirmary, UK 
Rupal Rajani, broadcast journalist and member of Life on the Level 
Tara Donker, clinical psychologist, Freiburg University, Germany 
Andrew Hugill, composer, musicologist and deputy director, Institute for Digital Culture, University of Leicester, UK  

Presenter: Anand Jagatia 
Producer: Jo Glanville 
Editor: Richard Collings 
Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris 
Sound design: Julian Wharton 
Studio manager: Bob Nettles 

With thanks to Andrew Hugill for permission to include his composition Verdigrade, commissioned by The Space as part of ‘Culture in Quarantine’, BBC.

Image: CrowdScience presenter Anand Jagatia tries out a machine for diagnosing and treating vertigo at Leicester Royal Infirmary 
Credit: Peter Rea

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