CONCUSSION REHABILITATION | POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME

Many individuals who suffer from memory and attention challenges weeks, months, or years after a concussion (mild traumatic brain injury, mTBI) - or a more serious traumatic brain injury (TBI) -  often feel worried and desperate for help to get their "brain working again" and get their "life back to normal". 

They were told to "wait it out. They continue to seem and look "fine" but silently suffer from an invisible injury that seems mild on the outside but can cause major struggles in everyday life, school, and work.

To those of you whose brain feels "foggy" and "stuck" after concussion/TBI, there is help.

Clients can feel overwhelmed or unsure when figuring out where to go for help or how to improve their thinking and speaking difficulty after a concussion. Many are surprised to learn that SLPs are one of the expert health professionals who help to treat concussion/TBI issues! Read this helpful educational resource about how SLPs help with concussion.

How do SLPs help with concussion treatment? SLP therapy for concussion/TBI involves teaching innovative, evidence-based, practical tools and strategies to help clients learn how to think more quickly, read and write more efficiently, speak and communicate more clearly, and interact more confidently; this is referred to as cognitive-communication rehabilitation. 

After concussion therapy, clients often express that they feel seen and heard,  more confident in their skills and communication interactions, and more hopeful in their recovery.

SLPs conduct cognitive-communication rehabilitation for clients whose difficulties last more than 3 months after the concussion/TBI (often termed Post-Concussion Syndrome, PCS).

Common PCS (concussion/TBI) concerns that the team at Connect Speech can assess and treat (if 3 months have passed since initial brain injury):

• more forgetful after the concussion/TBI injury
• problems focusing and concentrating after the concussion/head injury (feeling like has "ADHD")
• problems multi-tasking in everyday life
• trouble finding words after the concussion/TBI when speaking in a conversation
• losing train of thought in conversations
• trouble remembering the details of important conversations
• feeling overwhelmed while listening in group or social interactions
• brain fog or brain fatigue leading to slower thinking or slower processing speed after a concussion/head injury
• challenges keeping up with the dialogue/plot in TV or movies
• trouble following information while reading
• trouble forming and expressing clear, structured ideas when writing or explaining detailed, complex thoughts
• forgetting how to spell well-known words
• problems retaining information studied in a textbook or read in a novel
• challenges writing essays or time-sensitive exams
• difficulty getting the "gist" of a joke or missing sarcasm
• difficulty picking up on social cues and nonverbal communication
• and more...SLPs help with any concerns involving remembering, focusing, processing information, expressing ideas, finding words, reading, writing, conversing, or interacting socially.

Whether your brain injury is more mild (concussion), more significant, and whether it was due to a collision, fall, sports injury, or hit on the head, Connect Speech can provide hope and help.

Note: For Ontario clients who have been injured in a car accident, Kerry King, the lead clinician at Connect Speech, is a licensed HCAI provider.