Concussion Treatment for Kids and Adolescents: Functional Neurology
September 20, 2023
Concussions affect the way the brain works. After head injury, kids and young adults may have difficulty in school, socially, playing sports, or regulating emotions. This is of greater importance because the brain is very plastic (not hard-wired) and developing quickly when we're that young.
I believe it’s important to incorporate treatments quickly for younger individuals so that we can ensure their brains develop appropriately, ensuring a healthier future.
Kids and young adults often experience concussions from sports, but also can occur with car or bike accidents, falls, rough play, or anything that results in head injury.
Symptoms can sometimes be more subtle in kids as they don’t understand how to explain how they might be feeling. Headaches, low motivation, fatigue, difficulty with school work, difficulty reading, eye tracking issues, visual impairment, blurry vision, focusing issues, dizziness, dizziness when standing, brain fog, fatigue, constipation, mood changes, enlarged pupil, and changes in social patterns can all be indicators.
It’s not only the brain cells that are injured during a concussion, but more so the connections between them that carry signals that are disconnected. Functional Neurologists are are able to repair the source of your symptoms by locating and restoring connections in the concussed brain, allowing it to heal and return to normal function.
Our Functional Neurologists are specially trained in the treatment of concussions with years of training, fellowships, and experience that have allowed them to uniquely diagnose and treat all the components of a concussion. These components are often visual errors that impact eye tracking and convergence resulting in difficulty with school, reading and focus; vestibular problems resulting in dizziness and incoordination; spinal and proprioceptive impairment resulting in headaches and pain; and dysautonomia that results in brain fog, dizziness, slow processing, anxiety and other mood changes.
Treatment consists of first locating the source of the issue. Once we undersand what is causing your child's symptoms, we design a treament plan designed to repair the brain and its connections through a neuroplasticity model. This takes time, but is very effective and often restores them to normal function, sometimes even better.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is a powerful tool to treat concussions, enhancing neuroplasticity, reducing neuro-inflammation, promote circulation, and enhance oxygen delivery to the brain that expedites healing and reduces the possibility of post-concussion symptoms. When paired with neuroplasticity treatments the results are superb.
If you are wondering what the root cause of your child’s school, sports or behavior difficulty is, concussion may be the source and we can help.
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