Barb B, in response to your VRT not assigning you balance exercises at home: Personally, I think some PT and VRT folks don't want to overburden anyone with difficult things. However, it's often necessary to do difficult things to improve. You might ask about simply standing on a 2" thick or thicker chunk of foam (like an old camp mat or a chunk bought at a fabric store, even a pillow filling) at home, when there's something solid on both sides of you in case you begin to wobble. Do it first eyes open, then eyes closed. That's a pretty safe exercise to do by yourself. Another is to walk with eyes closed in a hallway with nothing to trip you up (no throw rugs). They may be called "throw" rugs because they can throw you! A good practice is to walk in low light situations, inside at first where you have checked for anything that could trip you, then, after lots of practice, outside...if you live where there's not lots of ambient light. Here, in the spruce woods, the nearest street lights are a very long distance away, and there are no other houses to provide light, so I walk our rough gravel road or even over the very uneven "lawn" (not grass, just whatever is there to be mowed, with frequent gopher mounds). It's crazy that VRT people avoid having you do anything "too dangerous" at home...because your everyday movements are dangerous if your balance isn't good! I know that, after I went to the specialist and got some additional ideas of things to do, I quit nearly falling every time one of the pets suddenly walked behind me in the kitchen. Before working on balance, I had been coming close to falling multiple times every day, but, after working on balance, I'm much more stable and stepping back onto the cat's tail doesn't make me come close to falling. You can walk in the dark or with your eyes closed safely in a hallway...if you're really, really unstable you can lightly touch the wall on one side to orient yourself. Even with that, you're learning to rely on proprioception instead of vision.

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