Every neurological patients has gone through the tests. Touching your finger to your nose and back, walking heel to toe, toe to heal, tuning fork and pin prick. Then there is the one you stand up put your arms out in front of you and close your eye…do you topple over? I do. I do when I’m home getting dressed and I momentarily loose eye sight because the shirt got stuck and down I go. Why? It’s the loss of PROPRIOCEPTION. What is proprioception? That is the ability to determine where you are in space in the absence of your vision.  According to http://Www.verywell.com . It is based on sensory input from the joints and muscles. It is your awareness of posture, weight, movement, and position of limbs, both in relation to your environment and in relation to other parts of your body.

This is sometimes considered the 6th sense but it’s so automatic in most people it’s rarely talked about. Then you have us, the “other” people. Well first we already are starting off with some sort of gait or balance difficulties before we close our eyes. Then added in the damage to the myelin sheath and signal loss from brain to muscle. Then finally take away sight. Of course we have issues. Good thing we don’t walk around closing our eyes all the time. You’d think balance is all about the inner ear and the head being straight. I found this to be an interesting fact and the fact it actually had a name even more interesting. That’s the second thing I learned this week from my blog.  Happy Thursday.