Amy Bianco can't get up the stairs without dragging her arm along the wall.
"I have to make sure I'm either holding on to a handrail, or I'll slide my elbow and stuff along the wall, something to keep my balance," said Bianco. "Otherwise I will lose my balance … don't want to fall."
Doctors aren't sure how, but Amy lost her vestibular system, the inner ear mechanism that helps her balance.
"And that's very devastating. People have lost that inner sense of balance, and so now they're very reliant on their eyesight, and they're very reliant on the touch on their feet," said Dr. Joel A. Goebel, Professor of Otolaryngology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO.
Amy tested out the new electronic "cap." The cap sends tapping signals to help compensate for lost equilibrium.
"And I want you to move away from the tapping until you get to that center point where you don't feel it anymore," said Dr. Goebel.
Practicing in the balance booth can help Amy retrain her brain.
"When you hear the tapping, your body just automatically goes the other direction, where normally with your falling, you have to think about it first and then, whoops -- you try to adjust, and sometimes it's too late at that point," she said.
The cap reduced falls by about 40 percent.
"They wear it, they practice with it and even now, when it's off, their balance is better," said Dr. Goebel.
Researchers are working on a more compact version of the balance cap that could be incorporated into a hat or scarf. The compact version could be available within two years.
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