Wendy Wright, DNP, on Diagnosing and Treating Dizziness and Vertigo

In this video, Wendy Wright, DNP, talks about diagnosing and treating vertigo in primary care, a topic she will be speaking about at our Practical Updates in Primary Care 2020 Virtual Series on October 9. 

Additional Resources:

Practical Updates in Primary Care newsroom. 

For more information about PUPC 2020 Virtual Series and to register for upcoming sessions, visit https://practicalupdates.consultant360.com/.

Wendy Wright, DNP, ANP-BC, FNP-BC, is an adult and family nurse practitioner and owner of Wright and Associates Family Healthcare.

TRANSCRIPT:

Wendy Wright: Welcome to my session of Dizziness and Vertigo: Diagnosis and Treatment Options. My name is Dr Wendy Wright. I'm a dual-certified adult and family nurse practitioner. I own two nurse practitioner-owned-and-operated clinics in New Hampshire named Wright & Associates Family Healthcare.

I'm so excited to welcome you to my session. Dizziness and vertigo account for at least 5% of all primary care visits. When we actually break that number down and we look at older adults, it's as high as 7 to 8% of all visits for older adults coming into the clinic.

I don't know what it was like for you, but I remember that I didn't have a lot of information when I was in graduate school about how to differentiate out, what are those differential diagnoses when someone comes into your clinic and says, "I'm light-headed. I'm dizzy," or, "The room is spinning"?

This session that I'm going to conduct, I believe, is going to give you a step approach to evaluating that patient that says to you, "I'm light-headed or dizzy," or, "I feel like the room is moving." I think when you walk away from this session, you're going to have a really good sense of what can potentially cause dizziness and light-headedness and what the causes of vertigo might be.

I think we're all very familiar with the more common causes of both of these conditions. But what I'm going to do in this session is I'm going to do a deep dive in. I'm going to give you common differentials, but I'm also going to give you the not-so-common.

My whole focus of this session is for you to walk away with a cookbook recipe on how you can evaluate this condition, how you can make sure you don't miss some of those life-altering conditions, and you'll have a sense of how it is you're going to treat those patients that approach you or come into your clinics with either dizziness or vertigo.

I'm excited to hear what you think. I hope you really enjoy this session.