Word: inners
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...study conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers offers potentially lifesaving clues. Looking at data from the National Institutes for Health, researchers found that an estimated 35% of Americans over the age of 40 - roughly 69 million people - suffer from vestibular dysfunction, or as it is more commonly known, an inner-ear balance disorder. By age 60 and older, the data showed, inner-ear imbalances strike more than half of all Americans. (Watch TIME's video "Uninsured Again...
...Although that link now seems obvious, doctors previously thought bone weakness, vision impairment and gait problems were the main culprits of falls among the elderly. And while physicians had always considered balance issues, they were concerned with those due to deteriorating vision or mental status, not the inner ear. "People with inner-ear balance problems regularly suffer dizziness or vertigo," says Dr. Yuri Agrawal, an otolaryngologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the study's lead author, "so it makes a lot of sense that they are more apt to fall down...
Doctors still don't know what causes vestibular dysfunction or why it is so common. The vestibular system in the inner ear is made up of three semicircular canals and two otolith organs that continuously send messages to the brain about the head's rotation and motion as well as its orientation relative to gravity. Humans keep their balance using the vestibular system's signals, along with visual cues and touch sensations. When the inner-ear signaling process is disrupted, it directly affects a person's ability to maintain equilibrium...
Most likely, things start going awry simply due to advancing age, Agrawal says. Smoking, hypertension and diabetes are also associated with higher rates of inner-ear balance problems. Fortunately, the condition is easily diagnosable in the doctor's office: patients are asked to stand on a firm padded surface and close their eyes. Without the ability to use touch and vision to stay balanced, patients who suffer from an inner-ear problem promptly fall down. The addition of that simple test to annual physicals, Agrawal says, "would likely save millions of dollars and lives...
...wanted the hotel to still feel like a house, and to be very social," says owner Fatos Buyukkusoglu, who led the hotel's design team and lives in a smaller house on the property. "We designed a lot of inner courtyards and spaces where guests can come together - at the dinner table, in the lounge or by the pool." Meals are taken at a 14-seat dining table, on the terrace, or on various sculptural bits of lawn furniture, and each night guests gather by the fireplace in the reading room or on the sofa in the lounge...