Very interesting; I suppose labyrinthitis has some connection with this
condition. But of course, some people experience something similar
because of contamination with alcohol. And alcohol persists for
several hours it seems and accounts for poor stability after a heavy
drinking session ;-)
Going really OT now: pilots can suffer serious spatial disorientation
when flying in poor visibility and one of the reasons can be
"sub-threshold stimulation" of the semi-circular canals. For instance,
a pilot might roll an aircraft very gently by mistake, and the inner
ear does not register the movement. But when he notices the error in
his aircraft's attitude (say he has 20 deg of bank instead of being
wings level) and rolls quickly back to wings level, that movement
registers and his inner ear tells him that he is now banked in the
opposite direction when in fact he is wings level. This is called "the
leans" and is insidious and rather nasty sometimes. The remedy is to
check your instruments and not to believe your balance mechanism.
Chris
On 20 Nov 2004, at 18:58, Piers Hemy wrote:
> That sounds righ to me Chris. I can add that the (in terms which I
> hope are
> appropriate) semi-circular canals' rate-of-turn and rate-of-climb
> sensors
> are integrated with the auto-pilot, and issue commands to the control
> surfaces. And if one or more of the canals are contaminated with solid
> matter canaliths), the measured flows in the liquid will be many times
> greater than normal, leading to commensurately great adjustments to the
> controls. In the experience one such sufferer, turning the head in a
> particular direction while standing was interpreted as a fall to the
> left,
> causing an immediate relaxation of the right leg muscles, and a pretty
> sudden fall to the right. An 'interesting' experience. As was the cure
> http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/
> Vertigo_benig
> n_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo?OpenDocument
>
> --
> Piers
>
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
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