Treating the Nervous System and Symptoms After a Concussion / TBI
Concussions often have lingering effects on the brain, for children, adolescents, and adults. A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can occur when a head injury causes damage to the brain.
Approximately 3.5 million people in the US sustain these types of severe brain injuries each year. At 3 to 5 years post-injury, 60% of those with moderate to severe injuries have not returned to pre-injury levels of their major activity (e.g., work, school), leisure and recreation, and 45% report difficulties in social integration.
We provide concussion treatment to lesson symptoms. If you or your family member has had a recent concussion and you’ve noticed changes in mood, we can help. This article covers:
· Signs and symptoms of a concussion
· Signs and symptoms of a mood disorder
· Brain Harmony’s 5-Step Plan of Care for concussions, TBIs and post-concussion disorder
Signs and Symptoms of a Concussion
A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that results from a blow or jolt to the head.
Concussions disrupt brain function, and depending on the concussion’s severity, symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to multiple months.
Physical signs and symptoms of a concussion include:
· Persistent headaches or neck pain
· Dizziness
· Lightheadedness
· Poor balance
· Nausea
· Brain fog
· Difficulty remembering things
· Poor concentration
· Trouble falling asleep
· Increased sensitivity to light or sounds
· Ringing in the ears
Symptoms of a post-concussion mood disorder include:
· Depression
· Anxiety
· Irritability
· Anger issues
· Apathy
· Mood swings
· Impulsivity
· Behaving out of character (when compared to pre-concussion behavior)
If you notice any of these symptoms after a blow to the head, contact a doctor immediately. Concussions are potentially life-threatening, and the sooner you begin treatment, the better the outcome.
Most doctors are well-versed in the physical symptoms of concussions. However, many of them overlook the emotional changes a concussion can cause.
Some people experience post-concussion syndrome -- their symptoms last for months after the concussion, and often include changes in mood[*][*][*][*].
Post-concussion mood disorders can happen at any age, but they’re particularly common in children and teens. Did you know that 1 in 3 children will develop a mood disorder after a concussion?[*][*]
Struggling After a Concussion? Here’s How Brain Harmony Can Help
Post-concussion mood disorders can be scary. You may feel like you’re a different person entirely. If it’s your child who was concussed, you may feel like you’ve lost touch with your son or daughter, or no longer understand them.
For recovery from brain injuries, we use a 5-Step Plan of Care.
Step 1: Vagal Regulation
After a traumatic injury, your brain is often stuck in a fight-flight or freeze-fold state. Many patients develop post-concussion anxiety or depression, and struggle to feel calm at a neurological level.
Step one in our plan of care focuses on helping the brain relax. Your vagus nerve runs from your brainstem to your abdomen and controls your fight-or-flight response.
We combine technology and therapy techniques to help you improve your vagal regulation. As a result, you feel comfortable and safe, and your brain is able to get out of its fight-or-flight or even the freeze-or-fold state. Once your brain is relaxed, you can focus entirely on therapy.
Patients who start with vagal regulation typically see much faster results in therapy.
Step 2: Neurological Organization
After we’ve taught your brain to relax, we use a variety of cognitive tools to improve brain function.
We call this step “neurological organization” because you’re literally reorganizing your brain -- teaching it to build new pathways, strengthen old ones, and improve cross-brain communication so that your brain is faster and more efficient.
Reorganizing the brain is a vital step, especially for patients with brain injuries. Injuries often disrupt communication between brain regions, which can make it hard for you to regulate emotion or focus for an extended period of time.
It’s worth mentioning that everyone’s brain needs different support after an injury. We develop a specific plan to organize your brain based on your unique symptoms, to make sure you see fast, sustainable progress in your brain’s recovery.
Step 3: Reflex Integration
You’re born with reflexes that help you survive - for example, you’ll automatically startle at a loud noise, then attend to the source.
Concussions and other brain injuries often disrupt your reflexes, which can have a surprisingly large impact on how you think and move. If infantile reflexes reappear or aren’t integrated as intended, they can disrupt your emotional responses, cognition, and even your movement.
Step 3 of our plan of care involves integrating your reflexes. Once your reflexes are working properly, we can begin to improve higher-order function, like emotional control.
Step 4: Therapeutic Activities
In step 4, we use therapeutic activities to improve your specific symptoms.
We have more than 20 years of experience as board-certified occupational therapists, which gives us a large suite of protocols and tools to use to improve brain function. Our therapeutic activities can address everything from balance and physical coordination to regulating your emotions and mood.
The tools and protocols we choose depend on your unique needs. We choose activities that will help strengthen yourbrain, based on your symptoms. We make sure we understand your specific needs through the Quiz you’ll take before scheduling a consult with our Founder Carol Garner-Houston or one of our therapists.
Step 5: Self Care
Step 5 is all about making changes sustainable with the ability to care for self a basic human requirement. This includes how to take care of yourself so your brain can continue improving long-term. When the nervous system is overwhelmed with an additional layer of trauma, care of self can get lost and even avoided if the vestibular organization is not addressed.
Brain Harmony therapists know that any individual who has sustained a TBI/concussion must have the basic building block of vestibular reorganization in good working order or basic self care can be so noxious that it is avoided all together. If bending over causes dizziness or nausea, then one will avoid the movement and any activity that requires it like shaving legs, washing feet, putting on your own shoes, picking up items from the floor and caring for young children. Like a muscle, if the vestibular system is not used, it will get weaker resulting in even further avoidance.
For many, post-concussion impulsivity can negatively impact all areas of function including ability to care for self. However, knowing the sequence of intervention and the use of accelerant devices to maximize organization resulting in improved cognitive development and enhance frontal lobe functional to include judgement.
Tools We Use to Strengthen the Vagal and Nervous System After a Concussion
At Brain Harmony, we use interventions and protocols that strengthen our ventral vagal control over the state of the autonomic nervous system. We can accelerate this process with specific tools that nudge and train your nervous system into a state of calm and safety.
Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP)
One of our favorite tools was created by Dr. Porges and revolves around how to train the autonomic nervous system using sound. This tool is a listening program specifically designed to bring clients into a state of social engagement by enhancing the tone of the vagus nerve and activating the ventral vagal branch.
Often within days of beginning the SSP, we start to see shifts in our friends’ ability to communicate and connect. As we continue through our program, that connection gets stronger as individuals start to feel more confident and grounded.
When Dr. Porges personally invited Brain Harmony therapists to beta test his program in the clinic model, we experienced firsthand what the program could do. But we also quickly realized that the intensity of 5-days-in-a-row was not the best fit for every nervous system so modifications of the protocol began to develop naturally when you know how to listen to the nervous system. This comes from years of experience and successful delivery of the SSP with thousands of individuals and families.
We also learned that the SSP is not intended to be a one-stop-shop for nervous system organization which is why a comprehensive concussion program requires more than just 1 intervention.
iLs Focus Learning System
Many require rewiring using a listening program over several months’ time frame with the legendary iLs Focus Learning System, which relies on sound, bone conduction and movement to change the brain and autonomic nervous system responses. Each of our clients is guided by their Brain Harmony therapist to get the most individualized experience with the application of the iLs Focus program and when appropriate, layering in of the SSP inside the ils Focus program. The ability to use multiple mediums and listening programs gives us a range that no other clinic, program, device or intervention can match. To us, this means, if you have not experienced our program following a concussion or TBI then there is unnecessary suffering.
Alpha-Stim
Brain Harmony is not bound to one device or one program to make the changes we need for the brain and nervous system. Another neuroplastic tool we use to enhance feelings of safety and calm in the body is with the Alpha-Stim. The Alpha-Stim device is light cranial electrical stimulation through the use of ear clips that attach to your earlobes. The Alpha Stim generates a patented alpha waveform (which is why we choose this one over other vagal stimulators) that works by enhancing alpha waves in your brain. Alpha waves create a sense of calm as they relieve anxiety, depression, and insomnia -- giving your nervous system a much-needed break from the hectic input of a traumatized brain. It can truly change your quality of life.
Again, this intervention is not always a good fit for every nervous system which is why Brain Harmony will lease this device to you on a monthly basis and pair you with a therapist to help you gain access to the power of accelerated vagal regulation with the Alpha Stim. You will know in that first month if this is a good fit for you, if so then you can keep leasing it until you own it. But if it is not a good fit, for whatever reason, then you can send it back to us and you can check that box that you tried it.
Through vagal regulation and neurological reorganization, we assist our clients in creating new pathways in their brains that favor more positive ways of thinking and optimal performance. Our clients experience better sleep, less anxiety, and a general sense of well-being. Doesn’t that sound luxurious?
Once your brain becomes more balanced and organized, your concussion symptoms begin to diminish. The sense of safety and connection within your body first is a requirement to comprehensive recovery. Only then can an individual be able to connect with others and access our social side again and begin to wire out of the dysfunction.
Post-Concussive Syndrome Testimonial Video
After a traumatic car accident, Kim was diagnosed with Post Concussive Syndrome. Brain Harmony’s unique methods dramatically catapulted her healing journey and cognitive repair. Watch below:
“Very few people I felt like were taking me seriously. And so, I came up out of a hit of feeling like I was alone and I’m just sinking and drowning and drowning because there’s something going on in my mind, something’s going on in my vision, something’s going on in my hearing, something’s going on in my coordination - something’s going on in all of these cognitive functions that are not right. And Brain Harmony restored that.”
More Concussion/TBI Success Stories
Takeaway
Brain Harmony has more than 20 years of experience guiding patients through traumatic brain injuries, concussions, and post-concussion syndrome recovery. If you’re suffering, we can help.
Book a free consultation today to tell us about your needs. Together, we’ll come up with a plan of care to help you and your family.