Hi again. Dr. Jonathan Pinnow here, your chiropractor for car accidents in Sun Prairie, WI. And today, I want to talk about a really important topic: concussions.
So for those that don’t know what a concussion is, it’s an injury to your brain. You see, concussions can have so many different symptoms. They can range from sleeplessness, headaches, increased irritability, trouble focusing, short term memory loss. And then even those severe headaches, inability to get out of that, and just completely forgetting what’s going on throughout your day. Not even just short term memory loss, but the bad patients come in after an accident and say, “I don’t even remember coming in for that appointment.”
Concussions Symptoms | Sun Prairie, WI Chiropractic
So the symptoms of concussions are wide ranging. And so we just want to go over a little bit about them and how specifically they can occur in an accident. We see, typically, a concussion is where you have an impact to your skull. So I’m going to use this to represent a little bit about the two kinds of concussions that there are.
And so this container represents your brain and inside of here we have a tomato. So just think about a nice ripe, soft tomato. It’s similar in substance to your brain. Your brain’s like a soft jelly substance similar to this tomato.
Concussion Causes | Sun Prairie, WI Chiropractic
And so in a football game, things like that, you’ll see where you have that impact to the head and that can cause a concussion. That’s the most common one that everybody understands. But the second one is more of a whiplash in that concussion.
And so similar to an auto accident, or exactly like an auto accident, is that that head goes forward. And then you whip back, and that brain slams up against the skull from the inside. And you have that impact on the inside of the head. So again, you go forward, and then it’s that backwards through there. The brain slamming causing that injury.
Chiropractic Car Accident Tests in Sun Prairie, WI
And so in our office, what we do is we go ahead and we go through concussion testing on every single auto accident patient that comes in. You see, we use one of only two FDA approved concussion tests that are available on the market right now.
So in our office, we use that FDA approved testing to determine the amount of care that you need, based on the severity of your injury. And so, when we come in, we’re going to have you standing in certain positions. You’ll be standing with your feet together. You may be balancing on one foot. You’re going to be holding a device and then testing your reaction speed.
We’re going to go through multiple different tests, a series of different tests, and also some questions to help determine what the levels of severity is for your concussion. And if you even have a concussion or not. You see, we want to end the ambiguity around concussions and get really focused on what you need. So we can get you back to your life. Like this accident didn’t happen.
Concussion Effects | Sun Prairie, WI Chiropractic
So if you’ve been in that accident, you suffered a concussion. There’s a lot of things that go along with this. And so kids have been found based on research to have lower grades after a concussion, especially if it’s not addressed. There’s something that’s called second concussion symptom, or it’s almost a concussion after your first concussion. If it’s not addressed properly, your second concussion can have even more severe symptoms with death is one of them.
And so in our office, we focus on how to correct the first concussion so that you don’t have any of the secondary symptoms. And so children after, or anybody, after a concussion the first time have a 3.7 times greater likelihood of tearing their ACL. You have a 50% increased risk of Tommy John’s injury in throwing sports.
And then in our office, based on research, we know that we can only test girls up to nine years or above. And then boys 10 years and above. Because your brains are still developing. And so girls’ brains develop a little faster than boys. That’s why the age in different in through there.
And so, it’s so important, even if you’re younger (and you maybe don’t have symptoms) to come in, get tested, see if we have a concussion, and then what we need to do to address it, to correct it for you going forward. So I hope that helps clear up a little bit of questions, maybe surrounding concussions, and we’d love to help you out. Thanks.
