Lookout WebMD, you’ve got some competition featuring visual aids, and its name is YouTube.
A new study suggests that our favorite place for cat piano and pool jump fail videos also provides surprisingly accurate and useful information on treatments for medical problems. Researchers writing in the journal Neurology detail how they studied over 3,300 videos about vertigo, the form of dizziness caused by an inner ear dysfunction. Some of the videos with the highest view numbers accurately detail the Epley maneuver—a relatively simple form of vertigo treatment that often delivers better results than a prescription for drugs or the common doctor-recommended treatment of “wait it out.”
While like all corners of the Internet, YouTube can also be a source of the wrong information, Long Island Jewish Medical Center Neurology Chair Dr. Ronald Kanner told U.S. News and World Report that “we found it encouraging to think that YouTube could be used to disseminate information about this maneuver.”
Video by Krishnan Vasuvedan.
