Is Dizziness the same as Vertigo?

Many people come to see me with dizziness and vertigo. Many times they aren't quite sure whether what they have is vertigo, or whether it's dizziness. Or whether it's neither. So the question in that first instance is, what's the difference?

The best place to start is to talk about it in the same way I would discuss it with patients. And that's to look at dizziness as an umbrella term, a heading if you will, and that underneath that we have a multiude of different ways to describe dizziness symptoms. This might include dizziness itself, but also lightheadedness, giddiness, wooziness, imbalance, fogginess, spinning or a whole host of other words. These may very well be words to describe the same sensation, or different sensations, it depends on the person.

When we talk vertigo, we are talking about a type of dizziness, albeit a rather specific one. By definition, vertigo is described as:

“The sensation of self-motion when no self-motion is occurring or the sensation of distorted self-motion during an otherwise normal head movement.” 

Essentially it's a sensation as though things are moving around you, or things are moving within your own head. Often peiople descrive it as a spinning sensation, but not always.

Compared to vertigo, dizzziness is generally defined as:

“The sensation of disturbed or impaired spatial orientation without a false or distorted sense of motion”

As you can see, this is a much more braod definition, which could encompass many different sensations. This can make it very difficult for you as the patient to really describe how you are feeling, which can be incredibly fustrating. It can also make understanding your symptoms for us as the clinician a challenge.

Why is it important do establish the difference?

One of the main reasons we look to differentiate between vertigo and otehr forms of dizziness is that they can be the result of different conditions. Vertigo is a symptom specific to certain conditions whereas dizziness can be attributed to many different causes. We often find that conditions causing vertigo can lead to dizziness, but t generally doesn;t tend to work the other way.

One of the problems is that it is all very subjective!

What one person describes as mild or moderate vertigo, someone else may describe as striogn dizziness. There's defintiely overlap. That's why as clinicans we will often use different information to establish the diagnosis, not just how you report feeling. Factors such as when the symptoms come on, how long they last and what happens when they do is just as, if not more, important.

So don't be concerned if you can find the words to describe your symptoms, or if you're not sure whether you have vertigo or dizziness, that's part of the process!