The SIRV is a learned, international society. As an official organisation, its members are primarily vestibular therapists®, although there are other specialists such as ENTs, neurologists, neuro-ophthalmologists, geriatricians, psychiatrists, life-scientific researchers, neurophysiologists etc…

The whole community has a desire to exchange knowledge, expertise, observations and to share all the practical lessons they have learned in the field of balance and vertigos. This enables healthcare professionals to improve their approach when dealing with patients who, due to their pathologies, find difficulty in carrying out their daily activities.

Advances in technology have improved research equipment. As a consequence, our level of expertise has improved, and our heightened understanding of the correlation between symptoms and signs enables us to precisely locate the nerve structures involved. Consequently, therapies have been greatly improved using more specific, more precise and more efficient techniques. The treatment time of patients over the past twenty years has been cut in half. Thanks to our continuing-education medical training, the expertise and skills of SIRV members has also increased; and this can only be of benefit to the patients.

Visitors are more than welcome to browse our site. They should be aware that in addition to the forum in which they are more than welcome to take part and share their perception of the illness and the emotions they entail, the rest of the site is for the exclusive use of healthcare professionals with the corresponding expertise, and who are able to incorporate any relevant data and findings they might have.

The world of vertigo and balance is a difficult one. The structures involved, in a medical sense, are plastic, which means that when the techniques are in the hands of an expert, results are excellent, but if used improperly, they can cause great harm. Treating oneself is dangerous. The “more or less” approach is unacceptable. These skills can not be acquired by simply doing some reading.

In 2009, vestibular reeducation celebrates its 40th anniversary. And with it come an expertise, content and technique. Any other practice should not be considered to be vestibular reeducation, and results can not compare to those achieved in the cases of thousands of patients around the world.

Alain Sémont. Founding President of the SIRV and author of Vestibular Reeducation