You have already visited Prague back in the 90s, how do you remember this visit?
I am really looking forward to coming to Praha again. I guess 1998 was my last visit. My first visit was for the Barany Society meeting 1992. Just 2 years after the liberation. It was a newly woked city. Still very few restaurants, money exchange in the streets etc. Very cheep and good beer! And I saw Don Giovanni at Tyl theatre, and Madama Butterfly at the Great Theatre. Already 1995 when I was back a lot had changed. Lots of good restaurants etc and in 1998 Praha was almost like any large european city (except extraordinarily beautiful). I am really looking forward to coming back!
Your lecture is entitled Secret of the 6th sense – vertigo, dizziness. Could you describe it briefly? What is this 6th sense?
The 6th sense is our sense of balance and the sensory organ – the vestibular organs – are situated in our inner ear. It is a sense that is so basic for us that we only notice it when something goes wrong with it. And then we really notice it!
Photograph: archive of Prof. Karlberg.
At the Second Faculty of Medicine students are watching a video with an experiment in which you get an injection of lidocaine into your eardrum. The entire video is in Swedish, so we don't really know what you and your colleague are talking about. Maybe your lecture will reveal that too?
My video shows what happens if you stop the vestibular organ from functioning. My colleague had injected local anesthetic through my ear drums on both ears which will stop the balance organs from working. I had not foreseen how sick I would become.
Based on your experience, how does a person who experiences severe dizziness or vertigo feel?
Unable to stand, the only way to move was by sitting, leaning against the wall, and shuffling forward decimeter by decimeter. Apart from that extreme nausea and vomiting! This terrible condition lasted for seven hours but then it gradually disappeared over 15 minutes and I was then able to ride my bike home. This is how a patient with acute vertigo feels!
– M.D. Lund University 1985
– Ph.D. Faculty of Medicine Lund University 1995
– ENT-specialist 1993
– For more than 20 years focused on diagnosing and treating patients with vertigo and dizziness
– More than 60 publications on PubMed
Prof. Mikael Karlberg
How do you personally see the impact of medical rehabilitation in the treatment of inner ear disorders?
Over the last 30 years, we have learned a lot about the most common causes of vertigo and dizziness: BPPV, vestibular migraine, persistent perceptual postural dizziness, and vestibular neuritis and I will briefly cover all these disorders in my talk!
You can visit the Mikael Karlberg's lecture during the Neurootology Day in Motol that will be on 25 November 2022. More info on the faculty website:
