A concussion can be caused by an unfortunate fall or blow. With such an injury, the work of the reticular activating system, which is responsible for consciousness, information processing, sleep and awakening, is disrupted.
A person may not immediately realize that a concussion has occurred - symptoms may take several days or even weeks to appear, so it is imperative to provide first aid and consult a doctor to exclude brain contusion, hemorrhage and swelling, which are more dangerous consequences of a head injury.
Possible symptoms of a concussion
· Brief confusion or loss of consciousness. With a strong blow, the moment of injury disappears from memory.
· Dizziness even at rest, and when turning, bending or other changes in body position, the symptom intensifies.
· Severe headache, nausea and vomiting.
· Double vision, inability to concentrate on one point.
· Increased sensitivity to light and sounds.
· Impaired coordination of movements.
· Reaction inhibition—the victim gives an answer to the question after some time.
· Pale skin, weakness, sweating.
Important! A concussion is not always accompanied by visible head injuries, so the absence of wounds does not exclude brain injury.
Medical examination
So how do you diagnose a concussion? At home, you can understand that a head injury caused a concussion if you look closely at the symptoms that the victim experienced. Sudden nausea, vomiting, and impaired consciousness indicate a possible concussion and the need to immediately call an ambulance.
In young children who receive such an injury, you need to pay attention to the condition of the fontanel; if it bulges, you need to be examined by a doctor. A bloody nose, as well as pale skin, indicate a serious injury; such symptoms cannot be ignored.
A concussion in adults is slightly different from the same injury in children. Toddlers are more susceptible to falls, and to cause such serious damage, even a slight impact is enough for them to shake the brain, and the bones of the skull press on the meninges. The child is not able to tell in detail about his feelings after receiving an injury, so his parents diagnose his concussion incorrectly or late.
Clinical picture
If the damage is severe, the organ is strongly compressed by the cranial bones, and blood flow in this area is disrupted. Main pathologies after a concussion:
- violation of colloid balance;
- changes in the composition of brain matter;
- organ tissues do not receive sufficient nutrition as a result of severe bruise;
- the connection between individual brain structures is disrupted;
- an area of increased pressure appears in the wounded area.
Concussion and brain contusion
A correct diagnosis of such a first-degree injury can be made after collecting an anamnesis. The doctor will ask the patient about his feelings and symptoms that arose after receiving the injury. When such a patient is admitted to the hospital, the doctor conducts an examination to determine the nature of the injury. Symptoms directly indicate the nature of the injury, so they are important in the initial examination of a concussion.
Signs of a concussion are as follows:
- short-term memory loss;
- severe nausea and vomiting;
- fainting, which lasts about half an hour;
- noise and buzzing in the ears;
- nosebleeds;
- migraine.
Degree of damage
The more serious the damage, the faster it is necessary to apply a series of diagnostic procedures, such as CT or MRI, which identify specific foci of pathology. Depending on the severity of such injury, symptoms may vary and intensify:
- The first is manifested by the patient’s lethargy and short-term confusion.
- The second is characterized by retrograde amnesia, short-term disorientation of the patient in space and also lethargy.
- The third – combines all the previously described symptoms, and in addition the person loses consciousness for a long time.
The longer the patient does not come to his senses after fainting, the more severe the consequences of the injury will be. When the patient has not woken up after 6 hours, everything can end in death.
After the victim has regained consciousness, additional signs indicating an autonomic disorder may occur:
Lethargy, drowsiness.- Paleness of the skin.
- Excessive sweating.
- Changes in body temperature.
- Irritability.
A concussion in an adult and a child may be accompanied by impaired visual function, spots float before the eyes, and the picture becomes cloudy. If all the signs of such a person’s condition are diagnosed on time and treatment is started in a timely manner, then most of the victims will be able to avoid serious consequences. It is possible to detect a concussion at home; the main thing is to pay attention to the characteristic signs, especially for children.
First aid for concussion
1. If one or more symptoms are present, immediately call an ambulance or take the victim to a doctor.
2. Treat the wound on the head if it appears due to the impact.
3. For an hour or until the doctor arrives, it is important not to fall asleep, but to remain at rest.
4. If you lose consciousness, lay the person on his side, bend his knees, and put his hands under his head.
5. If symptoms of a concussion do not appear immediately, it is recommended to rest and not begin vigorous activity.
Rehabilitation after a brain injury
A brain contusion is also a type of traumatic brain injury, but it differs from a concussion in the tissue damage. People need rehabilitation after a brain injury, as consequences of varying severity may appear.
Comprehensive diagnostics using CT and MRI makes it possible to identify destructuring of brain tissue and begin timely treatment. For patients who come to the Yusupov Hospital with a brain contusion, neurologists and neurosurgeons are developing a treatment program that includes conservative and minimally invasive methods. Rehabilitation after a brain contusion is carried out by highly qualified specialists from the Yusupov Hospital.
Do they put you in hospital?
And if so, in which department are patients with a similar diagnosis located? Moderate or severe concussions require hospital treatment. Such patients are placed in a traumatology, neurosurgical or neurological department.
What are they doing in the hospital? The main task of doctors and nurses is to exclude the presence of severe injuries and provide the patient with strict bed rest for at least the first few days.
Typically, the range of medications prescribed on admission includes painkillers, sedatives and sleeping pills, mainly in the form of injections and tablets. Nursing care means that the nurse brings medications prescribed by the doctor and monitors his compliance with bed rest.
How to measure your head if you have a concussion at home
About thirty years ago, in the village where I spent my childhood, perhaps every family had its own family “corrector.” We also had one, it was my grandmother’s sister, well, she was kind of like my great-aunt. All her relatives went to her to measure and straighten her head if there were suspicions that it was “shaken” (that’s how they put it)
Today I very rarely see a person who knows how to correctly “measure” - to diagnose that a person has actually shaken his head, and to correctly “straighten the head” - to perform the necessary massage, as a result of which “the head is set”
To begin with, let's figure out what it means to “shake off the head”, “shaken head”.
As we all know from the school zoology course, the human skull consists of separate plates and their connecting substance is cartilage tissue.
So this cartilage tissue is not rigid, and does not exclude the possibility of minimal displacement of the cranial plates.
This is what can happen with a strong blow or fall, but there are people who can shake their heads simply by stumbling. Because there is also such a phenomenon as intracranial pressure.
Any disruption of the normal functioning of the body is accompanied by pain, in this case a headache, plus nausea is often added (with a strong concussion). Attention(!) the symptoms of a head concussion and the warning signs of a stroke are very similar, it is better to consult a doctor before adjusting your head !
If, nevertheless, everything indicates that you have shaken off your head, then begin to correct it as early as possible, because it will be easier to do this, all due to the properties of the same cartilaginous tissue between the plates.
They also corrected my head, and more than once. Well, what do you want, boy, and that means fights, motorcycles and other “adrenaline”)
First, they will measure the head.
HOW TO MEASURE YOUR HEAD.
Take any belt or bandage, it must be non-stretchable, otherwise it will lie. It is circled around the head along the line of the superciliary arches, above the ears, and both ends of this belt are gathered together with the fingers exactly in the middle on the back of the head, where the occipital cavity begins. It is tightly compressed so that the belt does not move.
The fingers holding the ends of the belt from behind do not open until the measurements are completed. Take a pencil (felt-tip pen, pen, etc.) and put a line on this belt exactly in the middle of the forehead. Next, we put two lines, on the right and on the left, opposite the upper edge of the ear, where it is “sewn” to the head, exactly on both sides.
Now carefully remove the belt without unclenching your fingers from behind, and taking the “frontal line” on the belt with your other hand, separate them by pulling the belt. The lateral lines that we placed above the ears should ideally converge.
If they do not converge (and sometimes even by a couple of centimeters), this means that the person has shaken his head.
Depending on which direction the side stripes move away from each other, you can judge on which side the asymmetry of the skull is more pronounced.
HOW TO EDIT YOUR HEAD 1.
The massage is performed with smooth, slightly pressing movements, from the side in which the head “went”, in the direction “from where it left”, as if “pushing” the plates into place.
During the massage, the head is often measured again, observing the dynamics. At the end of the massage, the head is pinched (lightly!) on opposite sides and lightly and finely shaken several times. This is done by holding on the right and left, in front and behind.
After this, the head is pulled tightly with a towel. The patient walks slowly towards the bed, without nodding or turning his head sharply. Lies down without a pillow and lies for at least half an hour, without moving.
After this he begins to walk slowly. Usually, the headache goes away while in bed.
I was treated like this, as I described, and I tested the effect of this method on myself.
I don’t think this should be taken as a guide for healers, but it can be taken into account.
HOW TO EDIT YOUR HEAD 2.
The man, who has shaken off his head, takes the edge of the sieve in his teeth. Sieves used to be made of wood. So, as if sticking his face into a sieve, he very tightly (this is important!) clamps the wooden rim with his teeth. Head straight, eyes closed.
The treating person comes up from behind and lightly hits the side of the sieve on the right. The sieve begins to wobble from side to side. After it stops completely, the person behind hits the side of the sieve on the left, and it should stop on its own. So, there are alternately three hits on the right and three on the left.
After this, the head is also pulled tightly.
HOW TO EDIT YOUR HEAD 3.
Well, the last method, in my opinion, is the most dubious, but without the help of outsiders.
You need to stand in the doorway, so that the threshold is between your legs. Press your forehead firmly against the side jamb, and slowly, without weakening the pressure, sort of “crawl” your forehead down, scraping it along this jamb. The head will, as if twitching, slide along it, shaking again. Well, they say this way “falls into place.”
Well, in conclusion: You should not immediately rush to straighten the head of a child or teenager, even if the measurements showed obvious asymmetry. At a young age, the bones of the skull quickly return to their normal position. And the old people say: “If you start ruling at a young age, you’ll shake off your whole life.”
Purely technically, I will tell you this thing.
I had a neighbor, a grandmother, who straightened people’s concussed heads.) She simply measured the concussion: she wrapped a ribbon around the head and made marks with a felt-tip pen exactly in the middle of the forehead, on the back of the head and above the ears. The result was four marks on the tape. Then the markings of the forehead and the back of the head were stretched and one could see with one’s own eyes how the ear points coincided.
That is, if the ear marks overlapped each other evenly and the strips were more or less the same length, then there was no major shaking. If one half is much longer than the other, then the concussion is obvious.
The grandmother explained this by saying that during a concussion, a shift in the brain occurs, naturally, in tiny sizes, in some fractions of millimeters, but this is enough for the scalp to swell on the side where the concussion occurred.
We remember that a person is characterized by asymmetry of the body, therefore we take into account only the obvious discrepancy in the length of the stripes and previous blows to the head as a possibility of injury.
Further, how my grandmother taught me to straighten my head in several ways. I'll tell you one. Take a sieve. We take it in the teeth.) So that the side of the sieve is in the teeth, and the mesh is in front of the eyes. And lightly, very lightly, tap the sides of the sieve with our palms. This shakes the head and the vibrations go to the bones, so we tap very, I repeat, very lightly.
The fresher the concussion, the faster it will go into place. That is, everything that has moved will itself return to its usual shape. After work, you may experience weakness, nausea or dizziness. Then, after a couple of minutes of this internal brain massage, we very carefully crawl to the crib and rest for at least an hour.
Sessions can be repeated until the problem is finally resolved.
I hope that people here are adults and thoughtful, and I hope that no one will rush to beat themselves in the ears in their zeal to quickly correct their concussions. We remember that we are dealing with the brain and all body movements towards our head are gentle and affectionate. In any case, if someone is smart enough to imagine themselves as a woodpecker, then such intelligence is not worth crying
Rehabilitation after a brain contusion at the Yusupov Hospital: benefits
Recovery from brain contusion and concussion is one of the priorities of the Yusupov Hospital Rehabilitation Center. Experienced specialists provide patients with high-quality medical services and create a comfortable psychological environment.
Recovery after a concussion, carried out by specialists at the Yusupov Hospital, has a number of advantages:
- fast and highly accurate diagnostics, allowing to identify the consequences of the injury. The rehabilitation center has a modern material and technical base, which is regularly updated;
- when choosing methods of treatment and recovery, specialists give preference to the safest and most effective means;
- development of an individual recovery plan, including therapeutic and recreational procedures and medication;
- in patients with a concussion, rehabilitation takes place in a comfortable hospital to consolidate the results obtained and comprehensively eliminate the consequences;
- professional care and round-the-clock supervision by medical staff.
Bruises and concussions, for which rehabilitation is mandatory, are most often detected in modern people leading an active lifestyle. The main task of specialists at the Yusupov Hospital when treating patients with traumatic brain injuries is to provide emergency care and subsequent recovery.
Patients experiencing intense symptoms after a fall or various types of injuries can immediately contact the rehabilitation clinic, which is open daily. Pre-registration for an appointment is carried out by employees by calling the Yusupov Hospital.
Concussion: recovery period
Patients recovering from a concussion are interested in how long it takes to resolve the effects of the injury. Rehabilitation at the Yusupov Hospital includes a set of measures individually selected for each patient, so its duration is determined by a specialist.
After a concussion, until the symptoms are eliminated, the patient must follow the recommendations of a specialist:
- maintain a sleep and rest schedule;
- eat rationally;
- limit physical activity and exclude work that requires concentration;
- avoid stress and emotional tension;
- do not drink alcohol.
If a patient is diagnosed with a concussion, recovery of the body should take place under the guidance of an experienced specialist. In some cases, patients require a hospital stay, so comfortable conditions have been created for patients at the Yusupov Hospital.
