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Not just a bump to the head

Concussion group for those with lasting effects starts this week in Squamish
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Ironically, Vancouver Coastal Health occupational therapist Patricia Stoop didn’t know she had sustained a concussion when she bumped her head before leading an acquired brain injury class in 2007.

“I went to plug in the overhead machine and I knocked myself out on the cupboard door,” she said. “Apparently, I went around and made coffee and let everybody in… I didn’t actually come to until I was sitting there at the table with an incident report in front of me, and I was like, ‘What just happened?’”

After going to work the next day and being told she wasn’t making sense, Stoop finally realized she had sustained a concussion. It led to persistent post-concussion syndrome and meant she had to be off work for three months.

According to Stoop, 90 per cent of concussion sufferers are better within two weeks, but 10 per cent go on to have persistent post concussion syndrome.

Sufferers typically experience dizziness, fatigue, memory problems, visual deficits, language issues and personality changes, she said. Symptoms can last months, years or for life.

Stoop said car accidents are common causes of concussions as are sports including football, rugby, soccer, climbing, skiing and snowboarding.

It’s no surprise that concussions are common in the corridor. In one day, a Sea to Sky clinic may see eight concussions, according to Stoop, and every two or three days, someone will suffer a concussion that will have lasting effects.

“It is very common to be sitting around talking and for people to say, ‘Oh, I’ve had three, four, five, seven, eight concussions,’” she said.

Stoop will facilitate a new weekly Squamish concussion group starting Friday (Oct. 9). It’s for those whose concussion symptoms have lasted more than three months and therefore have persistent post-concussion syndrome.

The first part of the program will run for about 12 weeks and include education, support and guest presenters on topics including balance and managing pain and overstimulation.

Stoop said even concussions that resolve quickly are a big deal, because they are cumulative.

“With the studies in the states of the football players, they are proving changes in the brain,” she said. “So when people say they have had multiple ones, I say, ‘You have to stop hitting your head.’”

New research also shows that helmets, which are commonly thought to help reduce concussions, do not.  A consensus statement at the International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich in November 2012 concluded that helmets don’t work the way people think they do. “They prevent massive brain injuries, but they don’t prevent concussions specifically,” Stoop said.

There is no way to know who will get post-concussion syndrome and who won’t, according to Stoop. “And there are no particular risk factors,” she added.

But there is hope.

With the right attention, the symptoms can be mitigated.

Stoop recommends following basic healthy brain rules, including eating and sleeping well, managing stress, and keeping a high level of physical and mental activity.

The other good news, according to Stoop is that the brain seems to have more of a capacity to regenerate than was previously believed.

“Now there is proof that in the hippocampus, which is where the memory section of the brain is, we can create new cells and we can also create new connections within the brain,” she said. “When you have an injury there is the potential for two things to happen: one is the growth of new cells in the hippocampus, we know that for sure… and we also know the brain can make new connections.”

The Squamish Concussion Support Group is a partnership between Vancouver Coastal Health and Sea to Sky community Services. It is facilitated by Stoop and coordinated by counsellor Monica Dice. For more information, call Dice at 604-892-5796 extension 404.

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