Post-Concussion Program

Program Focus

This outpatient program is designed to aggressively address issues responsible for persistent disability (beyond 1 week) after concussion or "mild" brain injury resulting from auto accident, fall, sports injury, or assault. Complaints of persisting headache, neck pain, impaired balance, disordered arousal/sleep, visual disturbance or change in disposition or thinking are the types of symptoms which commonly prompt referral.

Program Director

The director of the post-concussion program is James Whitlock, MD, a rehabilitative neurologist with over 12 years of experience treating people with minor brain injury.

Program Philosophy

While there has been an overall tendency to "under-treat" persons with concussive brain injury whose symptoms are it seems often misunderstood, it is also possible to "over-treat" such individuals. The degree of variability in natural history of the post-concussive symptomatology is extreme and approach to each case truly requires differentiation and customization. We seek to provide people with appropriate diagnostic completeness, education, support and links to community-based support, and those interventions which we feel are most likely to have the largest and earliest impact. Interdisciplinary treatment is not required in every case. But in some it is essential to recovery/improvement.

Interventions

The outpatient facilities and staff of Northeast Rehab Hospital offer a very comprehensive set of tools and expertise from which to draw. Some of the more commonly used modalities and resources within this program include:

• Comprehensive neurobehavioral assessment
• Individual Physical Therapy (Ultrasound, Massage, E Stim, vestibular exercise instruction)
• Aquatic-based physical therapy
• Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS)
• Instruction in body mechanics
• Neuropsychological evaluation and counseling
• Individual treatment by Speech/Language Pathologist for adaptation to disabling degrees of cognitive/mnemonic dysfunction
• Individual Occupational Therapy for assistance with adapting to dysfunction which interferes with activities of daily living
• Vocational Assessment and Advisement
• Referral to local State Vocational Assistance programs
• Individual Psychological counseling (Stress management training/help with coping)
• Comprehensive neuro-ophthalmologic evaluation
• Pharmacologic interventions, when indicated

Local access to excellent neurodiagnostic resources (such as MRI, CT, EEG) exists if such testing is required. In addition, the program has access to specialists within the fields of neuro-otology, sleep medicine and psychiatry. While consults with these specialists are not commonly required, the specialists who are used each have above-average levels of experience with persons who have sustained brain injury.