There is a woman who is unable to stand properly without tipping and falling over even when she is standing on both her feet, on flat ground, with no movement. This is because her vestibular apparatus is working. The vestibular apparatus is the core sensory organ for balance. The vestibular apparatus functions in the ears by having the 3 semi-circle canals detects motion in 3-dimensional space and tells us if we are upright, upside down, or laying down. However, there might be hope for this woman, because Bach-y-Rita's accelerometer has the potential to reverse her case.
"She doesn't look like she is only afraid of falling, more like she's afraid of being pushed"
-It would be very interesting to live a life where just standing would make your body feel like it's going to fall or it's in free fall. It would be extremely difficult to do anything normally when the feeling of falling is constantly on her mind.
"Soon after her problem began, she lost her job as an international sales representative"
-I feel really bad for Cheryl that she lost her job due to her illness. I think it is really unfair to lose a job when the reason you lost is has nothing to do with not being able to do the job properly. Cheryl could have still had done her job well with minor setbacks that the company should have overseen.
"I can walk like a woman again. That's probably not important to most people, but it means a lot that I don't have to walk with my feet wide apart now"
-Very similar to a blind person seeing for the first time, or a deaf person hearing for the first time, it's an incredible relief an issue that someone has been dealing with their entire life is relieved. Constantly being afraid of falling would be such an obstacle in a person's life and this is a immense step for Cheryl to get her normal life back together and do the things she dreamed of doing before.
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