A group of doctors and therapists in New Brunswick are trying to help other health care professionals learn the most up to date information relating to diagnosing and treating sport concussions.
Dr. Jeff Pike, a physician in Moncton specializing in treating sport related concussions, says there is often an inconsistency when treating head trauma.
Pike was recently a speaker at an information session held at the Moncton hospital with health care providers from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, helping to teach new protocols for diagnosing and treating sport concussions.
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Pike says it used to be practice to put patients in conditions that felt like “jail.”
“They would be sent to a dark room until the symptoms went away and then we would gradually return them to activities after that,” said Pike.
Now, if symptoms persist longer than 48 hours, Pike says the goal is to get patients active earlier and begin the process of rehabilitation therapy.
The goal is to rebuild the brain’s tolerance to neurological stimulation. He said the same can be said for non-sport related head trauma.
Debra-Lee Pollard, a teacher in Moncton, suffered a concussion after falling on the ice and hitting her head in February 2017. Since then she’s suffered from debilitating migraines, vertigo and nausea, as well as a lack of understanding from others.
“If my arm was in a cast, you can see it and nobody would question it, or if I walked with a limp you could see it. But it is not something that anybody can see,” Pollard said.
Pollard looks perfectly healthy, but says the trauma going on inside her head for the past 18 months has changed her life.
“I just feel that I am not the same person that I was,” she said.
Experts say that concussion symptoms are often triggered by time spent staring at photos or phone screens.
But instead of putting the computer away, Pollard’s therapy involves building up her tolerance to blue light.
When isolated, Pike says his sport concussion patients often experience anxiety and depression.
“We want them to maintain their life as much as possible, because by changing their routine and changing their life that causes a cascade of events that often times can perpetuate the problem” said Pike.
He says the brain is so complex and more research is needed to truly understand mild-brain trauma
The good news is, he said, people do eventually recover.
Pollard’s symptoms are improving albeit much slower than she’d hoped. She’s looking forward to the day when she feels like her old self.