Weeks 1–2
Pain
Find out what’s really unsteady.
A hands-on evaluation tests your inner ear, vision, and strength to pinpoint exactly what’s throwing off your balance.
What We Treat
Balance & Gait Disorders treatment in Cherry Hill & Burlington.
The hallway wall you reach for without thinking. The stairs you take one at a time now, both hands on the railing. Unsteadiness is fixable, and it starts with a cause-first evaluation, not a guess.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- Reaching for a wall, counter, or railing without even noticing you’re doing it
- A stumble or near-fall that shook your confidence more than your body
- Walking slower, or watching your feet, the moment the ground turns uneven
- Feeling unsteady turning around quickly or standing up from a chair
- Avoiding stairs, curbs, or grass because you don’t trust your footing
- Family quietly worrying about you living alone, or you worrying about it yourself
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Unsteadiness is a symptom. Something is disrupting the system.
Balance runs on three systems reporting to your brain at once: your inner ear, your eyes, and the sensors in your feet and joints, plus the strength to react to what they tell you. When one falls out of sync, an inner ear issue, a past injury, or muscles that got weaker than you realized, the rest of your body compensates. That’s when the wobbling, the wall-touching, and the near-falls start.
A cause-first evaluation tests each of those systems individually, one-on-one with a licensed therapist, to find out which one is actually behind your unsteadiness. That’s the difference between generic “balance exercises” and a plan built around your real weak link.
The Honest Truth
Waiting doesn’t make you steadier. It just makes you more careful, which is its own problem.
If you keep waiting
- You keep shrinking your world: fewer trips, fewer stairs, fewer walks
- The muscles that would catch a stumble get weaker from disuse
- One real fall can turn a balance problem into a much bigger one, fast
If you start this week
- You find out exactly which system, inner ear, vision, or strength, is behind it
- Targeted balance and strength work starts, built around your own test results
- You get a plan with an endpoint: walking with confidence, not just “being careful”
Nobody regrets starting too early. Every week, someone in our clinic says they regret waiting.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for your balance.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for balance and gait.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Retrain the system that’s out of sync.
Targeted exercises retrain your brain, eyes, and inner ear to work together again, easing the wobble and unsteadiness.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Build the strength to catch a stumble.
Progressive strength and reaction training gives your legs the power to recover if you do trip.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Walk with confidence, not caution.
Real-world testing on stairs, uneven ground, and quick turns confirms you’re steady before you’re cleared, not just told to “be careful.”
My elderly sister regained her balance thanks to her physical therapist at Specialized Physical Therapy. I highly recommend them.
Shared by Paula L. · Balance & Gait Disorders
Week 1: held the wall with both hands just to get to the mailbox
Week 8: walking the neighborhood again without a second thought
Balance & Gait Disorders
8 weeks
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for balance problems.
Not usually. Most balance and gait problems can be evaluated directly by a Doctor of Physical Therapy, no referral needed to get started. We test your inner ear, vision, and strength ourselves at the first visit, and if something points to a different specialist, we’ll tell you and help you get there. You don’t have to guess where to start.
Yes, that fear is exactly why we do it one-on-one, with a therapist right there for support and a plan matched to your current ability. Balance training is done in a controlled setting, never thrown at you all at once. Most people are surprised how quickly a little supervised challenge starts building real confidence back.
Most patients feel meaningful change within 4–6 visits. A full plan for balance and gait runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform, and Prevent, typically over 8–10 weeks, depending on the cause. Either way, you get a plan with an endpoint: you’ll always know which phase you’re in and what’s left, not an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back, usually within two business hours. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon–Thu 8am–7pm, Fri 8am–2pm
- Prefer to talk now? Call either office. Cherry Hill 856-424-0993 Burlington 609-880-0880
- Same-week appointments available
5.0 · 607 Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 6
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time. Most people are on the schedule same week.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Specialized Physical Therapy – Cherry Hill
Specialized Physical Therapy – Burlington
- 11 Cadillac Road, Burlington, NJ 08016 (opens in a new tab)
- 609-880-0880
- Fax: 609-227-4423
- frontdesk@specializedphysicaltherapy.com
- Mon–Thu 8am–7pm, Fri 8am–2pm