Mal de Débarquement Syndrome (MdDS) is a balance condition. It has two distinct types: motion-triggered and spontaneous onset
Motion-triggered MdDS occurs when travelling for a longer time in a moving object such as a boat or an airplane.
Spontaneous onset refers to MdDS patients reporting symptoms without a clear motion event or obvious cause.
MdDS patients feel as if they are rocking, bobbing and/or swaying even when they're not. This "non-spinning vertigo" is present continuously or for most part of the day.
Onset occurs within 48 hours after the end of exposure to passive motion.
Symptoms may temporarily reduce when in passive motion (e.g. when driving a car).
Symptoms continue for more than 48 hours, but this can happen in different ways:
In evolution: symptoms are ongoing but the observation period has been less than 1 month
Transient: symptoms resolve at or before 1 month and the observation period extends at least to the resolution point
Persistent: symptoms last for more than 1 month.
Sometimes symptoms are better accounted for by another disorder, which makes it crucial to get a diagnosis from an expert.
The diagnostic criteria for MdDS have been classified by the Bárány Society.
MdDS is more than trying to find land legs again. Patients suffer from symptoms for long periods of time, sometimes years. It is a serious condition and can be very disturbing emotionally. MdDS patients therefore often suffer from mental stress as well.
SOS Vertigo can treat MdDS patients through readaptation of the vestibulo-ocular reflex in a VR setting.
