BALTIMORE - Dizziness is responsible for two-and-a-half million emergency room visits every year in the U.S. While most cases of dizziness are caused by inner ear conditions, some cases are due to an impending stroke. Johns Hopkins University researchers recently uncovered a new way to identify these stroke patients and it might surprise you how simple it sounds.

Seventy-nine-year-old Charles Meyers recently stood up and felt unusually dizzy.

"I just started to fall. I grabbed for the chair and sat in the chair strongly," Meyers said.

Days later, Meyers still felt dizzy but also felt nauseous and had a terrible headache.

At the emergency room, an MRI revealed he'd suffered a stroke in the back part of his brain called the cerebellum, which controls balance.

About one-third of stroke patients who complain of dizziness but don't show classic symptoms, such as one-sided weakness or speech problems, are misdiagnosed. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found a simple bedside exam is better at identifying these strokes than the current gold standard of MRI scans.

"I think this is -- has a lot of potential for changing the way we do stroke diagnosis in the emergency department," said neurologist Dr. David Newman-Toker about the find.

Researchers compared diagnoses made with MRIs to those made using a three-part eye exam. During the exam, doctors watch for abnormal eye movements when looking right and left, looking straight ahead while covering one eye, and looking straight ahead while the head is quickly rotated.

"The three-eye movement tests in our study identified all patients with stroke," shared Newman-Toker. "Whereas the MRI scan missed 12 percent of the stroke patients."

While the wait time for an MRI can be several hours the eye exam is done in just a minute. Researchers say further testing is needed for the eye exam, but initial results suggest it could eliminate many unnecessary thousand-dollar MRIs.

Meyers applauds that idea, but for now he is focused on improving his balance and living every day to its fullest.

"Absolutely, I'm 79 but I have a lot of living to do," he said.

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