Vesticon Corp, Portland, Ore, has provide widespread availability of its newest product, the Epley Omniax System, a software-guided patient-positioning system designed to help physicians and other care providers to
accurately diagnose and effectively treat vestibular disorders, such as the most common type, known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).
In any year an estimated 15 million Americans suffer from vestibular (inner ear) vertigo, often with debilitating symptoms. The system offers hope for the chronically dizzy by giving care providers a means to accurately diagnose the causes of positional vertigo and to treat those causes more effectively.
The software-driven patient positioning system uses infrared goggles to assist caregivers in analyzing abnormal eye movement patterns that are associated with the shifting of loose particles in the inner-ear canals which cause BPPV. It gives physicians and therapists the ability to rotate patients to virtually any position, including a 360° flip.
The device offers a precise nystagmus-based evaluation and provides caregivers the ability to detect,
differentiate, treat, and manage balance and dizziness disorders.
With the Omniax System, a physician can rule in or rule out various causes of vestibular vertigo and if it is determined that the cause is particles in the ear canal, the system provides a means to treat it. The system provides diagnostic and treatment capabilities and its multi-axial rotational capability allows for more
comprehensive treatment where manual maneuvers are problematic, such as when the patient is frail, obese, or disabled.
With its recent market launch, Vesticon has begun working with clinics nationwide to install new systems. In addition to the system at the Portland practice of John Epley, MD, inventor of the Epley Omniax System and developer the now-common "Epley Maneuver" for treating BPPV, systems exist at the Legacy Holiday Park
Clinical Research Technology Center in Portland; the Senta Medical Clinic in San Diego; the Florida Ear and Balance Center in Celebration, Fla; the Ear and Balance Institute in Baton Rouge, La; the Michigan Ear
Institute in Farmington Hills, Mich; and the Hearing and Balance Unit of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
Vesticon will be installing new commercial units at the Werner Institute of Balance and Dizziness in Las Vegas, and at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center in Cleveland.
Vesticon focuses on practical solutions that narrow the gap between medical knowledge of the vestibular system and putting that knowledge into practice at the clinical level. Research for the company’s three products currently in development has been supported by the National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation
Program.
