Concussion Recovery

May Mailbag

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As the sports season winds down at the high school I am finally getting to the various emails I have received. I do truly enjoy the many stories and questions I get here, often times they are very learned for me; which translates to more information for you the reader.

I picked out one such email and gained permission to reprint it here. The sole purpose of this email is to get feedback about the return to learn aspect of concussions. Tom would like you to give it a read and make comments below.

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Return To Learn in the High School

I am an athletic trainer in a high school in the north suburbs of Chicago. We have a concussion program in place and see about 80 concussion a year in our athletics. I am fortunate to have some control over the return to learn side of concussions in my school. I have found that this is essential in order to properly manage a concussion. I find when physicians only see an athlete once and set accommodations for a determined amount of time, it does a disservice. The same is true if the time between physician evaluations is too long, especially when kids are kept out of school for long periods of time. I find many concussion students don’t need to be out of school, and those that do usually have their symptoms decrease significantly within 1-3 days.  Many times concussions progress rapidly and Continue reading →

Fish Oil Revisited

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This post originally appeared on the blog in 2011, not much has changed in this area, it is still not definitively known if this is good, bad or indifferent (probably the latter).  However, this is a supplement that is good for all athletes for a myriad of reasons. I have chosen to post this again because it is one of the most popular and commented on post in the blog history.

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After posting about the “7 Ways To Help With Concussion Management” I realized that I had not posted about the possible benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids/DHA supplements for concussion management.

In a July publication of The Journal of Neurosurgery, Dr. Julian Bailes (BIRI) and Dr. Barry Sears (leading authority on anti-inflammatory nutrition, creator of Zone-Diet) found that supplementing rats with O3/DHA after head injuries reduced the observed issues with a concussion; (SOURCE via weightlosingideas.com)

“Animals receiving the daily fish oil supplement for 30 days post concussion had a greater than 98 percent reduction in brain damage compared with the animals that did not receive the supplement,” Dr. Sears said. “It is hypothesized that the omega-3 fatty acids in the fish oil reduced the neural inflammation induced by the concussion injury.”

O3/DHA has been documented to help with the inflammatory response of the body, many people use this SAFE and AVAILABLE supplement when training to temper swelling.  It is also has shown great promise for the cardiovascular system, mainly heart health.  Further investigation is underway Continue reading →

The Need for Sleep

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This post appeared in the infancy of this blog back in October of 2010, I have made some editorial changes since that time.

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It used to be that doctors would tell you to keep people awake with head injuries.  That has changed, quite a bit.  Keeping someone awake might be indicated for a possible brain bleed, but concussions need the sleep and recovery time.

Sleeping is first. If you’re not sleeping, forget it,” said Cara Camiolo Reddy, the co-director of the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute brain program and the medical adviser to the Sports Medicine concussion program. Sleep is vital in the recovery process because the injured brain needs rest to begin to heal itself. The concussion program and Camiolo prescribe medications, however, only to post-concussion syndrome sufferers who are three weeks or longer into their injury.

This quote was from and article by Chuck Finder of Scrips Howard News Services and appeared on NewsChief.com today.

In the article you will find that this prescription is not widely accepted by the community that deals with concussion management.  However in my experience it is vital to let the brain rest.  When I am debriefing with the athlete and their parents, the most often question I get is “can you sleep too much?”.  My answer is no. Parents often time are apprehensive if they subscribe to the old method of waking every hour, but I try to educate using the snow globe example. If the must wake their child I encourage it at infrequent and few times as possible.

With my experiences at the schools I’ve been an AT at, the kids and parents that abided by the recommendations of sleep and complete brain rest have recovered at a much quicker rate.  The kids and parents that did not listen often times have delayed recovery.

I know that is not a research study in its most proper form, but the observational evidence tells us, and those in the above article that sleep is indeed needed.

Back to Basics: Current Concussion Management

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What follows below are recommendations that have been on this blog for many years.  I came up with them when it started in 2010 and not much has happened to change what was written.  In fact, more and more these ideas have been accepted, showing that it was ahead of its time in 2010.

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE CONSULT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL FOR A CONCUSSION, USING THIS BLOG ALONE FOR TREATMENT OF A BRAIN INJURY IS NOT RECOMMENDED.

We can discuss rehabilitation from a concussion at a later time, but the theory of this being a spontaneous and passive recovery for a vast majority of incidences continues.  It has been my experience that the “less is more approach” is best with concussions, initially.  Being, that after injury the less you do to stimulate the brain and rattle the brain the better and faster the outcomes will be.  When the injury lingers on beyond 10-14 days (usually due to too much activity in the initial phases) that is where rehab and a more dynamic approach to recovery is needed.

Please enjoy and remember that back in 2010 this was not mainstream nor widely accepted.  I hope that four years later this is commonplace.

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Sport-Related Concussion, Don and Flo Brady (NASP Communique)

INITIAL STEPS

After an initial concussion the individual should subscribe to REST, not just physical rest, but COMPLETE and UTTER rest.

  • NO TV
  • NO Texting
  • NO Computers
  • NO Radio
  • NO Bright Lights
  • NO Loud Noises
  • NO Reading

COMPLETE brain rest, in other words, SLEEP!  This should be adhered to for at least 24 hours or when the medical professional that you seek (and you should) tells you otherwise.

SCHOOL AGED INDIVIDUALS

Rest should be continued until all signs and symptoms have resolved.  Rest in this demographic should Continue reading →