BrainSpan A Comprehensive Concussion Protocol For Healing
The football season is ramping up for the final playoffs. Chiropractors see a lot of sports-related injuries at the office, including neck, shoulder, arm problems (upper extremity), as well as back, hips, legs and ankle problems. Of special interest this year is post-concussion head and neck injuries.
Concussion in youth sports is a specialty with its own medical treatment. Forty-four million kids play organized sports. Between the ages of 0-14, approximately 475,000 injuries occur each year. And at least one million are treated for traumatic brain injures (TBI) yearly. Players have become bigger, stronger, and faster. Children and adolescents are more susceptible to concussions and take longer than adults to fully recover. TBI's in children are of particular interest because the brain is still developing.
A concussion is defined as a reaction by the brain to a jolt or a force that is transmitted to the head. The brain moves back and forth or twists rapidly inside the skull. The signs and symptoms are broken down into cognitive (C), behavioral (B), and physical (P) damage
C decreasing processing, disorientation, confusion, brain fog, memory impairment.
B sleep disturbance, irritability, apathy, fatigue,
P headache, dizziness, nausea, diplopia, photophobia, seizures.
New research on post-traumatic brain injuries started in the military (post Iraq war vets), followed by sports (professional sports related TBI's). There is a research organization called BrainSpan. The founder is a medical physician, who has been in the military 20+ years. Now the research and its program are available to the public.
The Brainspan test is composed to two parts Cell Inflammation and Resilience panel (CIRP), and a Central Nervous System function panel (CFP). The CIRP is a blood spot test that measures fatty acid biomarkers for body inflammation. Optimizing the fatty acids is vital to the proper regulation of pain and appropriate immune system response. The CFP test is a 15-minute interactive online test to measure the functional capacity and efficiency of the nerve connections that are associated with four basic cognitive functions. Memory, attention and processing speed is carefully measured against a control group using the Brain Resource Internal Data Base, the world's largest, standardized, normative brain health database.
The results of the test and clinical assessment incorporates the following categories acute/chronic inflammation, immune system disorders, gastrointestinal and metabolic imbalances, and metal/and cognitive imbalances. Optimum injury recovery and concussion resilience is maximized. Brainspan utilizes this program for children as young as 14, and adults as well. Brainspan treatments focus on balancing out the essential fatty acids (measured prescription) of EPA/DHA found in fish oil, and other biochemical nutrients that assist in healing brain inflammation. Our office also has added a very specific cold laser protocol from Erchonia Research. This has been developed over the last five years at Erchonia for improving neurological function from TBI's and other soft tissue trauma. The combined treatment is extremely effective within a three month structured program.
