SUMMARY
Jeffrey P. Staab, M.D., works with a team of clinicians and researchers in the fields of audiology, ENT, neurology and rehabilitation medicine to investigate chronic dizziness and balance problems.
Dr. Staab and his collaborators are particularly interested in how structural deficits in the brain and inner ear interact with changes in balance functioning and psychological variables to produce and sustain vestibular disorders. Dr. Staab and his colleagues are among the world's leading investigators of persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD) and vestibular migraine. They are also using artificial intelligence to improve clinical strategies for evaluating patients with vestibular and balance disorders.
Focus areas
- PPPD. In collaboration with researchers around the world, Dr. Staab and his team are combining advanced brain imaging techniques with physiological and psychological strategies to investigate the triggers for PPPD and mechanisms that cause chronic symptoms in patients with this disorder. They are also studying medication and rehabilitation treatments.
- Vestibular migraine. Dr. Staab and colleagues at Mayo Clinic and University of California, Los Angeles conducted the largest placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial of medication (rizatriptan) to treat attacks of vestibular symptoms in patients with vestibular migraine. Dr. Staab and his team are investigating interactions among vestibular migraine, PPPD and psychiatric disorders.
- Interactive diagnostics and triage. Dr. Staab's team is working with researchers from Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery to develop information technology that will use data provided electronically by patients with dizziness and balance problems to organize streamlined evaluations by balance specialists. The goal is to improve communications from patients and their primary care clinicians to specialty teams and back to primary care in order to diagnose vestibular and balance disorders more efficiently and treat them more effectively.
Significance to patient care
Dizziness and balance problems are very common yet notoriously hard to diagnose and treat effectively. As a result, patients with vestibular and balance disorders are too often impaired by their symptoms for many years. Through their research, Dr. Staab and his colleagues hope to increase knowledge about the pathological mechanisms of these conditions, improve the speed and accuracy of patients' diagnoses, and develop better treatment options.
Professional highlights
- Founding member, Board of directors, Functional Neurological Disorder Society, 2020
- Recipient, Wayne Katon Research Award, Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, 2019
- Named, Champion of Vestibular Medicine, Vestibular Disorders Association, 2017
- Member, Oversight committee, International Classification of Vestibular Disorders, 2017
- Editorial board member: Six professional journals in the fields of otorhinolaryngology, vestibular research and psychosomatic medicine