French physiotherapist Alain Sémont died in Pornichet, France, on 8 August 2026, aged 81. One of the pioneers of vestibular care, he helped establish vestibular rehabilitation as a distinct clinical discipline and his name is attached to an established treatment for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV).
Born in Pau on 4 November 1944, Sémont built his career around the assessment and treatment of vertigo and imbalance. From 1968, he collaborated with the Parisian otologist Jean-Marc Sterkers on rehabilitation for people with vestibular disorders. Their approach was given the name rééducation vestibulaire at the Entretiens de Bichat in 1972, helping to give a distinct identity to an emerging field that united vestibular physiology, careful clinical observation and targeted rehabilitation.
Sémont’s most enduring contribution is the liberatory manoeuvre for posterior-canal BPPV. It had been developed and used clinically for several years before Sémont, G Freyss and E Vitte formally described it in 1988 in Advances in Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, in their paper, “Curing the BPPV with a Liberatory Maneuver”. The technique uses a brisk side-to-side movement of the head and body, together with gravity and inertia, to dislodge or reposition otoconial material in the posterior semicircular canal. Their report included 711 recorded cases and described a positive result in approximately 84% after one manoeuvre and 93% after two. Subsequent controlled studies established its efficacy, and the Sémont manoeuvre remains widely taught and used.
The eponym, however, captures only part of his contribution. Sémont argued that vestibular rehabilitation was not simply generic balance training: it required careful attention to vestibular physiology, eye movements, sensory interaction and the mechanisms of compensation. He was the founding president of the Société Internationale de Réhabilitation Vestibulaire (SIRV), which brought together vestibular physiotherapists, otolaryngologists, neurologists, neuro-ophthalmologists and researchers. Structured teaching began in 1990, helping to transmit specialist knowledge and practice to new generations of clinicians.
His work received national recognition. In 1996, he was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite and, in 2014, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. The latter decree described him as a physiotherapist and founder of a learned society, recognising 45 years of service.
Sémont’s legacy is unusually tangible. His name is spoken every day in clinics where positional vertigo is treated, while the broader discipline he helped shape continues to develop. Few practitioners leave behind both an intervention known throughout the world and a clinical field strengthened through decades of teaching and organisation. The vestibular community has lost one of its pioneers; patients and clinicians will continue to benefit from his work.
Amy Lennox-Bowley
