Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 5: The Tension of Research Vs. Reality When Recovering From a Concussion
Transcript
- Jana: 50 % of individuals who have sustained a concussion are still experiencing or living with concussion symptoms six months after their injury. if you fall into that category, like me, where you end up living with long-term concussion symptoms, How do you find your way to feeling and functioning like yourself again? Let's talk about it. Hi, I am Jana Capp. I know the concussion recovery journey deeply, both personally and professionally. Join me in understanding your concussion, where I empower you in navigating the complexities. of a concussion recovery journey by sharing the science of what is going on behind the scenes, the stories of why we feel the way we feel, and how we can work with our brain to find our way back to feeling and functioning like ourselves again. Concussions are a very hot topic right now and there has been a surge of research in the last decade or so. Primarily, research is focused into the acute stage of a concussion recovery journey. But the population that this research is based off is a very small sample of the population. the research focuses on young athletes, typically teenage boys. if you're one of those individuals who has fallen into that statistic of being six months after your injury and still living with symptoms, it can make you feel lost in the recovery process. I know that's exactly how I felt. Once out of that acute stage, you might be feeling better. but you might not be back to your 100 % of how you function. the research doesn't always apply to the general public, especially if you're living with long-term concussion symptoms. Many of us are feeling at a loss not knowing how to navigate the whole journey. not all of us are teenage boys playing hockey or football. We are ourselves and it's hard to connect how us as an individual then fits into the research. As a healthcare professional, it is important to use evidence-based information and science that help determine best practices in a way that we can support a client or someone navigating this journey. But the research itself doesn't always apply to the individual. I know going through my journey when I was getting assessed for my concussion a few years after I had sustained two concussions. I had gone through what the outcome measures were at the time, filled out the forms, did the balance tests, and according to my physiotherapist, I passed. But I knew that that was not the way I thought. I knew that was not the way I could balance. But the test itself, the research, wasn't picking up on that for me as an individual. the evidence is important to be a part of this process, but we also want to ensure that we are addressing the individual and making sure that that individual is returning to the way that they want to feel and function in their lives, not just to ensure we've ticked off all the boxes that make sense in the evidence-based research. Not all of us are athletes. Some people do not like to exercise and that's concussions are not isolated to people who play sports. Many people sustain concussions in various different ways. Maybe you're a teacher and got hit in the head with a snowball by a student. Maybe you're a lawyer who got in a car accident and had severe whiplash, Maybe you're a 60 year old bus driver, or perhaps you're like my grandfather in his 80s who sustains a concussion. None of those examples I just gave you are a 16 year old teenage boy whose life is hockey or football. we are all different individuals sustaining concussions in different and unique ways. we want to ensure that we have access to the research, but we apply the research to the individual who's in front of us. I want to give you some examples of how you can use the research to support you in your journey, even though you're not that 18 year old hockey player. And how you can start to understand the way the evidence can support you. You as an individual in your life, not that you're trying to fit into the box of the expectation of what the research says. one example, in the cardio protocol, it is recommended that you work up to achieving 80 to 85 % of your heart rate max. If you're interested in learning more about cardio and how it's beneficial for your concussion recovery and cardio protocol, then you can access lesson four of the course's understanding your concussion. it takes you through understanding that cardio piece of a concussion recovery journey. So what the cardio protocol recommends is that you work towards 80 to 85 % of your heart rate max. Your recovery process has to be specific, unique, and tailored to you as an individual. You can't fit into the box of research You have to make the research work for you. when my grandfather sustained his concussion, that was not a functional goal for him. He didn't necessarily need to work towards 80 to 85 % of his heart rate max to start to feel and function like himself again. Exercise is an important aspect of this recovery. So whether you like to exercise or not, it is an aspect of this journey that should be included. That's where the C comes from in the ABCs of a successful concussion recovery, the C stands for cardio. exercise needs to be included, but How you exercise should support how you function in your life. going back to my grandfather, he was a daily walker. That was part of his lifestyle. He didn't necessarily need to work towards achieving that particular heart rate for him to feel better, but he could include cardiovascular exercise into his recovery process by the things that he enjoyed. He also did a lot of driving. when talking to him, because at the time we weren't living in the same area, I could tell he was struggling with his visual system. so encouraging him to walk daily, and starting to incorporate visual exercises is what helped him return to feeling and functioning like himself again. He didn't necessarily need to achieve a particular guideline that was laid out in the research. He just needed to reach his level of functioning again. Using the cardio protocol with my clients, what I do find is that what's more functional for people who are a part of the general population is getting to 70 to 75 % of their heart rate max. Because whether they're a manager of a store or they're working in a restaurant, If you're up on your feet all day, maybe you're working in retail and you're walking back and forth and picking up boxes and unloading those boxes or carrying food back and forth to a table, your heart rate will go up. if you haven't worked through that system to help it to return to functioning in the way that you need it to function, you will experience symptoms. People often struggle in their return to work protocols because they're focusing on building up their tolerance to the environment or the endurance of getting back to their job, but maybe don't realize that their cardiovascular system isn't able to keep up with them in the way that they need to function. once they start going through the cardio protocol and hit that 70 to 75 % of their heart rate max, they start to experience those changes where they can feel and function more like themselves in their lives. That's what the research needs to do is to support people getting back to functioning like themselves in their day-to-day lives. Another example in how the research can differ for the individual is the length of the recovery time. How long is it gonna for us to get back to feeling and functioning like ourselves again? When I started taking concussion management courses and learning about the research The general timeframe for recovery at that point was two to four weeks. That was what was expected of someone to recover from a concussion was in two to four weeks. Again, remember this is based off of young teenage boys whose lives are only about sport. Fast forward a few years and now they're saying the recovery timeline is somewhere between four to six weeks. we are all individuals when it comes to how long it may take for us to recover from our concussion. It's different for everyone. It can't be generalized. but it has become generalized because of the research, if the research, as I had mentioned, is based off of a very small population of the general public, if you don't fall into this expectation, it is very normal for you to go into that space of, what is wrong with me? Why am I not fitting into the proper recovery timelines? They're saying this should be done within four to six weeks and I'm six months in or I'm four years in. And does that mean healing is not possible? Is there something wrong? Did I do something wrong? No. You have done nothing wrong. It is your timeline that you're gonna heal on. You have to go at your own pace because how we sustain our concussions is very individualized, but who we are in our own lives and how we function is specific and unique to us. We are all individuals. And so we can't necessarily function like a 18 year old teenage boy obsessed with hockey. If we're a 60 year old bus driver or a teacher, We have to allow ourselves to heal and recover at our own pace, at our own time. And healing at any point is possible. And if you don't believe me, then check out the more recent podcast episode the brain can heal. There is nothing wrong with you and you have done nothing wrong. You are on your own journey at your own pace and you are here because you are still motivated to move forward in this journey. You're still on your path. Another way that we differ in the research is when you're moving through the guidelines or the different stages of healing in between each stage should be about a 24 hour period for you to determine whether your symptoms have increased or not. that's not necessarily going to work for the average person. If I am an 18 year old teenage boy and I can focus only on my sport and that's basically the way I function in my life, then yeah, maybe all I need is a 24 hour reset to know if the action I took is making me feel better or worse. But if you're an adult who is navigating life and all of life stresses, your job, family, a 24 hour period it's not realistic because you're not only focusing on your sport and that's it. Your energy and your attention and your focus is getting divided in so many different areas of your life. It isn't realistic for you to fit within that guideline. that expectation doesn't always make sense for the general population. as a clinician, it is important for me to be aware of the research and the evidence But I also ensure that my main focus is the individual in front of me. That I am aware of the research and the evidence that is out there of how best to support this person. But I need to ensure that that research fits into their lives, not that they fit into the research. I focus on the person What I want to do with the research is ensure that it's in supporting my client. to return back to feeling and functioning the way that they are designed to, the way that they are designed to function and the way that they ultimately want to show up in their life. How we heal has to support who we are. How we function and how we want to feel as ourselves. we need to take that research and evidence and make sure it's applying to us as an individual. As long as it's supporting you in the way that you want to move forward in how you're going to feel and function, then your recovery process is working for you. Healing from a concussion is not a one size fits all journey. we are all individual in how we sustain our concussions and in how we heal our concussions. And that's okay. There is not one way to heal from a concussion. There is not a right way to heal from a concussion. It's about finding your way to heal. You need to find your way to feeling and functioning the way You want to show up in your life again. I had to find my way back to me. And it was a process which took some time, but it worked. You know, when I was mentioning earlier about the recovery timelines, two to four weeks, four to six weeks, for me, it took me 15 years. to return back to feeling and functioning like myself. Now my story is my story and I didn't get the correct guidance, support and mentorship early on in my journey. And when I figure out how to embody that research that made sense to me as an individual, it helped me find my way towards feeling and functioning like myself again. Does that mean I did it wrong? No, I did it the right way for me. And that's all that matters I found my way back to feeling and functioning like myself. And I didn't fit into the research guidelines or expectations, but I did end up fitting back into my lifestyle. And that was my ultimate goal. that's why I want to empower you in this journey. I want you to find your way to healing so that you can also find your way to feeling and functioning like yourselves again. That's what understanding your concussion courses are designed to do. They are designed to empower you in your journey so that you can begin to understand some of the science. that is important in this journey to understand, but also how to apply the science to your unique self. What tools and strategies are available to you to start to play around with to figure out how that's going to work for you in your own unique recovery process. It's a starting point because when I started out in my journey, there wasn't anything to access at that time. I didn't have a framework to help me determine what action I could take so that I could find my way back to feeling and functioning like me again. That's what the courses are designed to do. And you always have me for guidance, support, and mentorship, whether that's one-on-one virtually in a consultation Or there's the membership option where you have access to all the courses every month and support and mentorship from me It's about supporting you in your process, in your healing journey so that you don't have to do this alone. It can be overwhelming and isolating and lonely already as it is. If you don't fall into the box of the research, that doesn't mean you're now an outlier and you are stuck where you are at. You can make the research work for you. You can extrapolate the research to help you move you forward in a better direction. And if you're unsure of that on your own, then let's connect. Thank you for joining me in understanding your concussion. I hope that you are leaving this episode feeling empowered in understanding what is going on behind the scenes of your injury, why you feel the way you feel, and how to begin to take action to move forward in your unique healing journey. Interested in checking out understanding your concussion course? Head to concussion healingspace.com or the link is in the show notes. You can purchase lesson one through four, reminder lesson one is free. If you're interested in connecting with me for mentorship and support, one on one consultations are available online or join the Concussion Support Club where you get access to all four courses and weekly drop in support club options