Concussion in Phoenix

A concussion disrupts brain function through rapid head movement in a fall, accident or sports impact; healing depends on severity, health history and genetics. Light and noise sensitivity, slowed processing, memory lapses, poor sleep, irritability, anxiety and low mood are common alongside dizziness and headache.

• The vestibular system did not recalibrate. The balance organs, eyes and neck normally agree about where your head is. After impact that agreement can drift: dizziness with head turns, unsteadiness in the dark, supermarket-aisle misery. It responds to graded retraining.
• The eyes stopped sharing the work. Convergence and smooth tracking are often affected, making reading, screens and scanning a room effortful. That effort feels like brain fog, but the failing system is oculomotor and can be trained back.
• The neck took the same impact. Whatever accelerated your head also accelerated your neck, and irritated cervical structures cause headache, dizziness and poor concentration that mimic concussion. It is the piece most often missed, and most clearly a physical therapist’s job.
• Rest that ran too long. A few days of complete rest is appropriate; a month costs conditioning, sleep and mood, making remaining symptoms louder. Much of what looks like an unrecovered brain is a deconditioned body.
• The system that regulates exertion is running hot. Heart rate response, blood pressure control and sleep can stay disrupted for weeks, so symptoms spike as effort rises. Graded, supervised activity below the threshold is the best-supported way through; guessing the threshold makes people worse.

Emergency signs (worsening headache, repeated vomiting, seizure, one-sided weakness or numbness, slurred speech, unequal pupils, deepening confusion, or someone who cannot be roused) need emergency care now. We do not diagnose concussion or clear anyone for sport, school or work; the managing physician does.

People here are past the frightening part and stuck in the boring part: they rested, and rest stopped helping. They want each system tested to find what is still misbehaving.

The 60-minute, one-on-one evaluation with a Doctor of Physical Therapy separates systems. We test balance, head movement with the eyes fixed, convergence and tracking, examine the cervical spine by hand, and find the exertion level where symptoms begin, the number that shapes your first two weeks.

The plan has an endpoint, reviewed every phase, with the same doctor each visit, usually 2 to 3 times a week for 4 to 6 weeks minimum. We update your physician when useful; clearance stays with them.

Recovery is rarely a straight line. Most people improve significantly within one to two months; athletes, especially teenagers, often need closer to three. The exertion ceiling usually lifts first, then reading time stretches, and the busy shop goes quiet last.

We track numbers because feelings mislead mid-recovery: steady-gaze seconds during head motion, convergence distance, symptom-onset heart rate and balance error scores. They move even in flat weeks.

Left alone, this gets organised around rather than resolved: reading rationed, busy shops avoided, exercise postponed, and the deconditioning that follows makes every symptom louder.

The endpoint is a tested return to what the injury took, with clearance made by the physician who owns it and a plan for the weeks after discharge.