A waddling gait happens because of weakness in your hip girdle and upper thigh muscles. To make up for the weakness, you sway from side to side and your hip drops with each step. It's also called myopathic gait and can be caused by several conditions.
Causes of Unsteady Gait. An unsteady gait can occur with a develop from health conditions that affect the musculoskeletal system (muscles and joints), vestibular system (inner ear and brain), or the nervous system (brain, spinal cord, or peripheral nerves) that controls body movements.
Definition. Weakness of the hip girdle and upper thigh muscles, for instance in myopathies, leads to an instability of the pelvis on standing and walking. If the muscles extending the hip joint are affected, the posture in that joint becomes flexed and lumbar lordosis increases.
Vitamin B12 deficiency, which causes subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord, can lead to numbness and paresthesia, which ultimately affect gait. Pain, vascular, traumatic, autoimmune, inflammatory (vasculitis), metabolic, neoplastic, paraneoplastic, and tabes dorsalis may be involved.
Ataxic gait disorders occur due to dysfunction of the cerebellum, the part of the brain that is responsible for coordination of movements. Typical causes of cerebellar ataxia include strokes in the cerebellum, alcohol intoxication or chronic alcohol abuse, and multiple system atrophy – cerebellar type (MSA-C).
Dizziness has many possible causes, including inner ear disturbance, motion sickness and medication effects. Sometimes it's caused by an underlying health condition, such as poor circulation, infection or injury. The way dizziness makes you feel and your triggers provide clues for possible causes.
Certain conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, or problems with your vision, thyroid, nerves, or blood vessels can cause dizziness and other balance problems.
Problems with balance are frequent signs of several illnesses. Many of these problems don't need to be treated by a doctor. However, if you experience balance issues, you should visit a doctor to rule out more serious health issues like a tumor or stroke.
The most common causes of imbalance without dizziness are related to dysfunction of the muscles, joints and peripheral nerves (proprioceptive system), or the central nervous system (brain). People with bilateral vestibulopathy have balance issues but no dizziness if the damage affects both ears at the same time.
Problems with balance and feeling dizzy are common in MS, and can have knock-on effects on your walking. Like all MS symptoms, these issues affect people differently, and vary from day to day.
The ear has two important roles. It is our organ of hearing and our organ of balance.
If you are experiencing dizziness, lightheadedness, a spinning sensation, confusion, or blurred vision the first step is to speak with your primary care physician. He or she will begin the process of testing to determine the cause and may refer you to a local neurologist for some aspects of treatment.
Vestibular balance disorders can affect your balance and make you feel disoriented. Common causes include inner ear problems, medicines, infections, and traumatic brain injury. These disorders can occur at any age. But they are most common as you get older.
Peripheral nerves
The nerves outside of your brain and spinal cord can become damaged, which is called peripheral neuropathy. Weakness, numbness, pain and balance issues can be caused by peripheral neuropathy because it makes it difficult to determine where your body is relative to other objects or the ground.
Osteoarthritis and skeletal deformities of the lower extremities are the most common reasons for non-neurological gait disorders in adults [2].
Feeling fatigued is one of the most common and troublesome symptoms of MS. It's often described as an overwhelming sense of exhaustion that means it can be a struggle to carry out even the simplest activities.
MS is an immune-mediated disease affecting the brain and spinal cord, also called the central nervous system (CNS). MS can appear at any age but most commonly manifests between the ages of 20 and 40.
Your neurologist or movement disorder specialist will perform a history and physical examination of your eye movements, cranial nerves, speech, coordination, gait, and sensation. They may order imaging including MRIs or CT scans to determine a neurological cause of your balance symptoms.