Reality trumps fantasy. No helmet will ever stop a concussion. Not everyone who plays sports will get one. Not everyone plays sports. BUT anyone can have a concussion! WHY? And why aren’t your doctors asking more questions.
Because they’re only trained to treat what they see (ordinary signs and symptoms.) If they can’t see, they can’t help.
It’s sad. From the concussion research I’ve done in the last several years, the state of concussion treatment isn’t getting better. In fact, it’s almost nonexistent. I know people are looking for answers that help.
I did a literature search inside Pubmed late 2016 and found that when I searched just the word, “concussion”, I got 4656 studies. Of course I wasn’t going to go through all that. So I narrowed down the search for “concussion treatment.” Pubmed by itself included other words that others might use – intervention, management – words that I feel are far inadequate. But I got the number of concussion research studies down below 300 and sifted through those until I came up with about a dozen studies that satisfied my criteria for treatment. I was not looking for management of symptoms.
Watch the video:
Most concussion research is focused on understanding concussions and looking at the long term effects of concussion. I wanted to know how they actually helped people get better. Doesn’t it seem logical that if we come up with solutions, that there will be NO long term effects? Duh.
In the last few years concussion research is showing that it’s taking longer for people to recover. Back in 2014, one study reported that some 24% who got a concussion didn’t recover within the first year of getting one. Now I’m seeing more recent ones that say up to 64% didn’t recover after one year.
Just this month a study in Pediatric Annals, states that,
“For several years both cognitive and physical rest remained at the forefront in pediatric postconcussion management. However, the concept of “rest” has not been well defined and there remains significant variability both in terms of rest recommendations provided as well as adherence to such recommendations. More recently, there has been growing evidence to suggest that an earlier return to light or moderate activity is not detrimental and may, in fact, facilitate symptomatic improvement, thereby highlighting a new role for active rehabilitation in recovery from concussion.”
This is the problem: Making the assumption that everyone is the same.
In another study, the researchers came to the conclusion that
“Recommending strict rest from the ED (Emergency Department) did not improve symptom, neurocognitive, and balance outcomes in youth diagnosed with concussion. Surprisingly, adolescents who were recommended strict rest after injury reported more symptoms over the course of this study. Although recommending strict rest ultimately did not significantly alter the amount of physical activity between groups, it did change the amount of mental activity (eg, school attendance). This is the first randomized controlled trial of rest strategies in pediatric patients after acute concussion.”
These studies mirror what was also concluded in earlier adult studies (de Kruijk et al, 2002).
Concussion Research That Your Doctors Ignore
There is NO evidence whatever that prescribing several days of rest works, yet doctors continue to advise parents and adults to take 5 days to two weeks off. They’re assuming that if some rest is good, more must be better.
One parent told me recently that her daughter who suffered three blows to the head in one game, and blacked out after the last one, her doctor instructed her to stay in bed for 2 weeks and to say good bye to the rest of the school year. The mother told me that her daughter was exhausted from all this rest.
Another mother several years ago told me that she just simply couldn’t imagine her 10 year old son staying in a darkened room for days at a time.
Both mothers knew instinctively there was something wrong.
Here’s what I recommend, from observing and researching in my own clinic.
I recommend getting back into a normal life as soon as possible. Sure, rest for a day if you feel like it. You must be 100% honest with yourself. Go to school or to work and see how you do. Don’t allow others to dictate how you should feel. Some things you can probably handle quite well even after a concussion. Other things, maybe not. If not, go home and rest. Try again tomorrow.
In my own son’s case, he broke every conventional rule about concussions. He got his concussion answers – and that’s what they should be – about treatment and recovery from me, his doctor and physician. The most important help I could give him was to do a thorough physical and psychological examination before we began the work for recovery to explain why his brain was weakened.
That’s an area of concussion research that NO one else is doing.
As I said I found 13 studies that matched what I thought were treatments. What concussion research there is about treatment consists of scattered treatment modalities including anti-depressants and antianxiety drugs (Scheutzow, 1999) and brain surgery (! Ducic, 2015). Most psychological intervention includes Cognitive Behavioural Training (Sandford, 2010; Conder, 2014; Potter, 2011; Ogden, 2014), mindfulness (Azulay, 2013) and telephone support for military personnel (Bell, 2016).
There is no comprehensive plan. People have to go from one therapist to another to another for different symptoms. It’s a lot of coming and going, using up time, energy in all forms and money. It takes a long time to get better.
Meanwhile researchers note that there are definitely signs of psychological stress and physical problems related to stress before some people get their concussions. These same researchers are asking for more psychological treatment.
That’s good, but right now, if your doctor refers you to a neuropsychologist, they’ll recommend a form of Cognitive Behavourial Training. That’s only looking at one part of the brain. What about the addressing the real area that makes the brain weak – actually giving people the practical and simple tools to do something about the stress in their lives. You see the cognitive part will follow the emotions. If you’re troubled and you don’t do something different about that trouble, how will you ever make different and better decisions because you mind is all cluttered up with nonsense!
That’s what my book, Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game is all about. That’s what my practice is all about. First we identify what made your brain weak in the first place. Then we together with you, do something about it in a practical positive and constructive way.
Answers are in the brain and in the mind. Your thoughts and emotional state 100% influence your brain through the stress response and the process to go back to a relaxed state.
Lynne McTaggart writes in The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World:
“A sizable body of research exploring the nature of consciousness, carried on for more than thirty years in prestigious scientific institutions around the world, shows that thoughts are capable of affecting everything from the simplest machines to the most complex living beings. This evidence suggests that human thoughts and intentions are an actual physical “something” with astonishing power to change our world. Every thought we have is tangible energy with the power to transform. A thought is not only a thing; a thought is a thing that influences other things.”
Every thought you have causes neurochemical changes, some temporary and some lasting. Concussion research looking into practical and comprehensive treatment is required.
My work is all about possibility and possibility thinking. It changes the brain. It heals the brain. Neuroplasticity works both ways. You’re either shrinking the brain which is therefore a sick brain or you’re growing it. As you expand your life by WHAT you are THINKING, you are encouraging the birth and growth of new healthy brain cells and creating new healthy neural networks.
Because you’ve chosen to think constructively and positively and then taken those thoughts and put them into action to produce the results you want!
So, what about you?
Are you pouring your heart and soul into something that has a lot of meaning for you?
Are you ready to make tough decisions and go after what you want?
Success is not easy, not matter how you cut it. But the results are mighty fine. Stop living small. Dream big. Do big. Take a leap of faith. And be your own person all the way!
Dr. Joanny Liu, TCMD, RAc, P.Eng, International #1 Best Selling Author and founder of Extraordinary Sports Medicine, where we help athletes reverse injury, get back in the game they love and improve their quality of life.
P.S. Watch Nathan’s Successful Recovery from Post Concussion Syndrome:
If you or someone you care about has a concussion or post concussion syndrome then pick up Dr. Joanny’s best seller: Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game
