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Head Injuries and Inflammation
Sports related injuries plague professional and amateur athletes alike. Ankle injuries are one of the most common lower extremity injuries and is high on the list. Overuse injuries from repetitive movement patterns in football, soccer and other field events are also very common. Most of these injuries are soft tissue in nature and result in tendinitis and/or tendinosis.
One of the most frequent injuries seen today in sports news is the head injury that results in post-concussion syndrome (PCS).
Most young people who sustain injuries to the head during active play will, with the right amount of time out, get through the injury event, have symptom resolution, and return to full activities. Many players, however, will suffer from devastating effects on their sports career and overall health.
Headaches that linger for days, weeks, and months is one of the most common symptoms of PCS. Persistent balance problems, dizziness, fatigue, sensitivity to light and noise, and unusual numbness and tingling may be the result of PCS. Cognitive problems may arise. Difficulty in concentration and forgetfulness of past events and conversations are common symptoms. Sleeping problems frequently are a sequela to PCS.
After an injury there are well defined parameters that evaluate and help determine when it is safe to play again. The Acute Concussion Evaluation (ACE) form helps document an initial acute head injury, which can later be used by subsequent physicians as a baseline. There is also the Sports Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT), which is another questionnaire used to evaluate people after a concussion in sports.
Whenever there is a head injury there is always an accompanying neck injury. The head trauma takes precedent, but many times the attending health care specialist focuses only on the primary clinical presentation, i.e. the head injury, and bypasses a thorough evaluation of the secondary neck injury.
Applied Kinesiology (AK) is a tool that supports classic orthopedic and neurological testing procedures. AK is functional neurology and is a receptor-based examination protocol to prioritize the most obvious and find the more subtle problems in neuromuscular assessment. Functional neurology uses manual muscle testing (MMT) to assess faulty nerve receptors that are inflamed and become pain generators, thus affecting balance, posture, vision, hearing, joints and muscles. All head injuries involve global brain inflammation as a result of the acute injury, and many are left with persistent chronic symptoms.
Cold laser therapy applied to the acute injury site within a 72-hour window will reduce the inflammation and healing time by one-half when applied correctly. MMT will also assess central nervous system (head and neck) dysfunction and peripheral nervous system (extremity) dysfunction, and then correct through the application of cold laser therapy.
Our goal is to have that person express themselves with no pain, no inflammation, when they return to play.
