The delicate connections required to recall information in the brain can be damaged by hitting your head. Research is confirming that even a mild concussion can have lasting effects including memory loss.
I always interview my patients – often dragging bits of information out of them so I can piece together the chain of events contributing to their health problems. One of my patients was falling into the category of a head trauma. I kept asking her questions, but she couldn’t remember any head bump that had happened around a year before.
I asked her if she could remember a time when she fell and the wind got knocked out of her. Then she remembered how she had slipped a little over a year ago on her patio because it was slippery from the rain. She described how her feet went flying up as she crashed backward onto the bricks. She was knocked out long enough to be soaking wet when she woke up. She just picked herself up and went about her day.
Amazingly she did not realize that this hard knock to her head could have caused her memory troubles. Had this happened on a football field, she would have been rushed to the hospital for evaluation. Many head injuries are brushed
off and forgotten. People hit their heads on doors, shelves, windows, windshields, animals, people or anything else that they aren’t expecting. Research shows that injuries which happened years ago may just now be showing up as a brain function problem.
My EEG (Electro Encephalograph) equipment shows the waveform activity in the brain and can evaluate any area. If there has been a head trauma the EEG reveals the distinctive patterns associated with trauma in that area. It also gives valuable diagnostic data. Usually head traumas slow down the injured area of the brain’s processing ability so that it’s function is compromised. This could show up in concentration, forming sentences, calculating, problem solving, co-ordination or balance and it can even affect digestion or sleep.
Below is a graph of a person with a head trauma. You can see the big burst of slow wave activity on the top line between 33.5 and 35.5 on the graph.
The good news is that the brain has the ability to rewire itself. My EEG equipment also has a rehabilitation tool called Neurofeedback
(NFB). Neuro – means nervous system tissue – the brain. The computerized exercise of Neurofeedback stimulates the brain to rewire itself with a simple feedback exercise while you watch the screen. This exercise encourages the brain to create the new neuropathways needed for the brain to regain the activity lost due to the injury.
This Neurofeedback training can also help a brain be able to process information correctly again so memory improves along with any other functions that are lost like reaction time, recognition and information processing.
The EEG is an amazing tool that allows you look inside your head to see if head trauma is contributing to any health problem. Learn more about the EEG analysis and learn more about the Neurofeedback training.
Protect your head and brain as much as you can. In the event of an injury the good news is, there is help available.
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