Concussions

Concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries that can occur with a blow to the head or a quick rotational injury to the head and neck. In these cases the brain, which is floating in your skull, continues the original motion it was in and hits the inside of the skull causing a “coup” hit. The brain then bounces off that side and reverses direction causing sometimes a second hit on the opposite wall of the skull called the “counter coup” hit. Concussions can occur in everyday life, accidents, and with sports.

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The most common sports for concussions are football, soccer, and cheer leading, but can happen at any time in any sport. It is very important to understand the signs and symptoms of a concussion and to pull your child from sports if one is suspected. Some of the common symptoms for a concussion after the insult are: headaches, dizziness, fogginess, concentration issues, memory loss, photophobia (sensitivity to light), phonophobia (sensitivity to sound), fatigue, insomnia, confusion, ringing in the ears, nausea, slurred speech, irritability. Having your “bell rung” probably means you had a concussion and should be thoroughly evaluated by a sports medicine physician who understands concussion.

At ESMI, we have a detailed program for rest, treatment, clearance and return to exercise and sports. Our goal is always to get our patients back to normal activities and sports ASAP but in a safe manner. As there is a lot that is not known about concussions and long term effects, we need to be a bit cautious about them. We use not only in office testing but a computerized test as tools in return to play. It needs to be noted that the computer test does not determine exclusively when you go back to sports but must be administered by a trained professional and used ONLY as a tool in the whole picture for each case. We have baseline testing (which should be done once a year in growing kids) at ESMI which we can do in the office. We would also do follow up testing on the visits. Dr. Mody has a return to play protocol that is aggressive and in line with the current standards of concussion treatment.