Doing your head in?

Head trauma and concussion in particular is nothing to shy away from and should be frowned upon from all angles. A medical concussion is classified as temporary unconciousness or confusion related symptoms caused by head trauma. However these can come in all shapes and sizes.

Think you may have a concussion?

Signs and symptoms of such a mind numbing trauma can be split into cognitive, emotional and sleep all linking with their physical counterparts.Struggling to concentrate, focus or remember trivial pieces of information all indicate a cognitive deficit. Diagnosis can be aided with the MADDOX criteria used heavily in contact sports usually involving location or opponents team names.Presentation of headaches, dizziness, nausea and poor balance control are all physical indications that the brain body relationship is impaired. A lot of headache type symptoms may also be caused by subsequent soft tissue inhibition and residual stiffness, check out our headache blog for more info.

Dont blame the partner.

Other manifestations of such trauma may include a change in sleep patterns. Too much/little sleep can affect a persons mood and irritability which we are all guilty of from time to time. The important thing is comparing to that individuals scale or 'normal', which is usually spotted by those closest to us.Irritable behaviour can present over a few days highlighting that concussion can take a few days to come to light.Partners be warned!!

Possible further implications.

There were just under 350,000 cases in the UK of brain injuries seen in our emergency rooms in 2016-2017. The risk of sustaining such an injury dramatically increases with the addition of contact sport participation, Rugby and Boxing for example. Both therefore can increase the risk of secondary impact syndrome. Multiplying in severity, this is where the blood vessels in the brain loose the ability to regulate their diameter causing internal bleeding.Boxing happens to be the only sport where documented cases of secondary impact syndrome occur in the age range of 20-25 years.The repetitive impact nature of this sport has influenced its own regulations to prevent such instances. The WBC states that an athlete diagnosed with concussion is suspended for 60 days, refraining from sparing for at least 45 days post injury. 3 consecutive instances of this can even result in their license being stripped.

Help yourself?

Recovering from a concussion can be broken down in to a some easy steps, starting with the 4 P's; PRIORITISE-PLAN-PACE-POSITION. This can help you start to determine which activities are the most crucial for your success throughout the day, but remember this is along with plenty of rest. The final P refers to where choose to spend those days of recovery, loud noises and bright lights is not recommended.Scaling up for activity includes starting with entle exercises after a period of symptom free timescale. Slowly start to incorporste your sport specific routines excluding the risk for contact, i.e park with friends. Finally gradually taking you back to the truest environment maybe whilst monitoring the symtom free time periods once again.Want to know more about some of the inner working of the head along with functions? Check out what we all discussed here in one of our recent CPD sessions.If you are suffering from or have either a head trauma or even whiplash type of mechanisms and show some of the signs mentioned above which are not subsiding with relative care then give us a call at the clinic. We can aid in setting relevant goals for your recovery and also help with some of the MSK side effects too.