Concussions And Head Injuries

The main causes of concussions are typically anything that involves a head injury. This can include sports activities, and all too frequently, automobile accidents. Severe concussions, because of the immediate symptoms, are often followed up...

The main causes of concussions are typically anything that involves a head injury. This can include sports activities, and all too frequently, automobile accidents. Severe concussions, because of the immediate symptoms, are often followed up upon with medical care. It is however the less severe impacts that can become more problematic as these are not always brought to the attention of a medical person. In addition to neurologic symptoms which can develop following even a mild concussion, even more serious is something called second impact syndrome, whereby an individual with a concussion has a second one and has not yet recovered from the first. This can be so severe that it can actually be life threatening. For these reasons any suspect concussion, i.e. any head trauma, should be followed up for appropriate examination by a medical person well trained in post concussive injuries. The most common symptoms following a concussion include sensitivity to lights and sounds, and often altered sense of smell and difficulty reading. The latter is often inappropriately thought to be due to age related deterioration in vision, but is in fact due to an inability to properly place the eyes in the correct position and keep them there while viewing a target, or while moving the eyes from one target to another, or while following a target, as occurs with reading. My office is used to seeing patients who have had an untreated concussion years ago only to find worsening symptoms now. Naturally these are much easier to treat earlier on.

Things that you can do if you believe you may have had a concussion: The simplest thing you can do is come in to our office for a balance test. The test takes less than one minute to perform and yields an extraordinary amount of data relative to you postural systems and your brains ability to resist the earth’s gravitational pull properly, i.e. risk of fall. Our office does not charge for this service as we offer it as a free community service. Our office is additionally equipped with a complete balance center, including infrared video goggles which allow us to record and watch your eyes while following targets on a computer screen in real time. This information is essential to properly treat someone whose brain has been injured.