Treating Sports Concussion, "Traumatic Brain Injury"

Did Lou Gehrig really have Lou Gehrig's disease? A new study suggests that repeated hits to the head from playing sports can cause a motor-neuron disorder with symptoms that mimic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS as Lou Gehrig's disease is also called. Both conditions include weakness or numbness in the limbs, uncontrollable muscle twitching, and gradual loss of movement.

Researchers examined the brains

You don't have to play football to get a sports concussion.
Literally any sport is at risk!

and spinal cords of 12 deceased athletes thought to have died of ALS who all had a history of multiple head injuries. The researchers found that the athletes may actually have had chronic traumatic encephalomyopathy, a degenerative brain condition linked to head trauma. Two distinct proteins distinguish this condition from ALS, according to findings published in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology.

A recent report in Pediatrics found that from 1997 to 2007, the number of emergency room visits for concussions in 8- to 19-year-olds at least doubled. Young athletes are particularly susceptible to long-term brain damage because their brains are still developing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 50,000 adults and 2,680 children die of these kinds of traumatic brain injuries each year.

Sometimes the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) may not appear until days or weeks later. After all, you don't have to be knocked unconscious to sustain a concussion. Symptoms that range from sleepiness and dizziness to changes in mood and difficulty in making decisions are signs of concussion. All brain injuries can disrupt connections in the neural circuitry, which can create abnormal brain activity.

Counseling is difficult because patients can’t track everything that’s being said; they don’t remember conversations. Concussions and traumatic brain injuries can trigger epilepsy and increase the risk for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age.

The damaged areas are unlikely to repair themselves on their own. Unlike in Lou Gehrig’s day, we now know that brand new pathways can be created to take the place of those damaged with brain training. However, head injury, and other forms of brain dysfunction, often mean there is a slowing of activity in the brain’s frontal lobes. That is the area in charge of executive function: planning ahead, decision-making, judgment, language, and other important cognitive functions. 

EEG neurofeedback is typically less effective as it can't be used directly on frontal lobes because of noise in the signal. That's why we use HEG neurofeedback as part of out integrative system of therapies, which uses near infrared light to measure activity in the frontal lobes by measuring the oxygenation in the blood. A person then can learn how to use computer-assisted biofeedback exercises to actually increase the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain. As oxygenation increases, new neural connections are made all over the brain and brainstem. HEG can be extremely effective, and often in half of the time of older EEG systems (the kind with sticky electrodes).

This kind of non-drug program can bring order from chaos in the brain. The effects are long-lasting. Call BrainAdvantage today for more information.