Therapy Clinic for Non-Sports Related Concussions
In the world of high impact sports, concussions can be a common occurrence but that doesn't mean concussions can only happen to athletes. In fact, the team at Avera Therapy has developed a clinic specifically designed for non-sports related concussion patients that utilizes a variety of treatments to help patients overcome debilitating symptoms.
Jill Kolb was doing a home remodel when the unthinkable happened. A shelf fell and struck her on the head leaving her with prolonged concussion symptoms and debilitations. A freak accident that has changed her entire life.
“Jill had quite a few impairments when I first evaluated her. Neck pain, headaches, dizziness, nausea, just general imbalance, as well as visual deficits,” explained Colton Johnson, a physical therapist with Avera Health.
“The worst thing about it is, is people think, well, it's just a concussion and you'll get through this,” said Kolb.
Johnson says you can think of a concussion as a bruise on your brain and that makes the damage impossible to see on the outside. Concussions are more common in athletics and there are several safeguards and training set up to spot and get quick treatment for injured athletes, but the same can’t be said for concussions that happen in everyday life.
“It is very underdiagnosed, but you could tell with Jill because she was a very, very high functioning person before. I think she'll get back there, it just takes time,” said Dr. Justin Persson, a neurologist with the Avera Medical Group Neurology.
Recovery from concussion is different for every patient, but inactivity when you're dealing with persistent concussive symptoms is probably the worst thing you can do according to Johnson. That's why Avera Therapy is looking to raise awareness on the clinic designed for non-sports related concussion. “We're just really trying to make sure that people are aware that we have these services for them and we'll do absolutely everything we can to help them get better,” said Johnson.
For Jill, exercises include working on motor control which uses a head laser that is used to help track her balance. “It's a nice kind of external thing for her to focus on that optimizes her neck movement adequately as well as some different balance tests. In other sessions will focus on manual therapy to help kind of move her spine better,” said Johnson.
For Jill, this form of physical therapy is something that really has helped her progress in her recovery.
“When I first heard them, I'm like, what am I going to physical therapy for? But the team here at Avera Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, they’ve changed my life,” said Kolb.
Because of the concussion, Jill's eyes cannot cross as much as they used to before the injury. So she utilizes vision and occupational therapy to work on hand-eye coordination, focus and motion tracking exercises.
“What Amanda will do for me is basically we do crossword puzzles, numbers, identification with numbers and letters is basically how they do it with the vision therapy,” said Kolb.
“She's definitely improving. That's the good thing about concussions. They tend to be the worst immediately after and then gradually improve.” Said Dr. Persson.
“When I came here, these three people validated how I was feeling. Found ways to help me get through it. It's just been it's made it easy because there's so many things about a head injury that isn't easy,” said Kolb.
