Over the course of the past couple of years, you have been hearing more and more about concussions and people suffering from them. While they were something that would’ve been kept hidden before, they are the center of discussion for many people, including NASCAR.
A couple weeks ago, NASCAR announced that it will mandate pre-season neurocognitive baseline testing as part of its comprehensive concussion prevention and management program for all of its national series drivers.
“A concussion is classified as a blow to the head or neck which causes the brain to move within the skull and cause some bruising to the brain,” Phil Jones said during an interview last week.
Phi Jones is the creator of Dynavision D2, which includes neurocognitive programs, which includes sports vision training, concussion programs, general rehabilitation, and a pilot project with cognitive training for seniors or those with Parkinson’s. Dynavision is a program that has been used for over 20 years now to treat traumatic brain injuries and recently has incorporated concussions as part of that program.
“They’re just coming to the conclusion these days that concussion is part of the traumatic brain injury family, just a different sort of level,” Jones commented. “The treatment and effects are very similar, just a different level, so the Dynavision is effective on both levels.”
The concussion part of the Dynavision D2 program allows you to do a series of test that set up a baseline to therefore compare to later to determine what type and how severe the concussion is.
“If you have been baseline tested through some of the computer programs out there like our Dynavision program, you will have a set of cognitive skills and processing abilities,” Jones explained. “Ours also covers motor movements and coordination – that kind of area. If you have these performed on you and you have a certain level, then you have a concussion these levels are effected very dramatically and will show up in the results when you get retested that you won’t be able to achieve these same levels.”
Jones went on to explain that the person taking the Dynavision test will go through a series of esclating levels that test cognitive and physical movements.
“You start off with a basic level where numbers are coming out in front of you and you’re just reacting to them,” he said. “Then we add cognitive challenges where we get you to call out answers and then some simple math problems, and then word recognition with words with letters missing. It causes you to make cognitive decisions while making physical movements, reacting to it.”
Concussions are something that everybody continues to try to grasp their arm around as there are many parts to it. When it comes to the possibility of even thinking that you may have a concussion, there are several signs.
“There’s such thing as migrane headaches, continuous headaches, opening up and looking out at the bright daylight or bright light, general feeling of a daze, loss of memory, just a pretty bad feeling,” Jones explained. “The feeling that you want to lay down and not do much except lay there with your eyes closed.”
Once you know whether you have suffered a concussion or not, the healing process is not always straight forward and involves working with neurologists.
“With your own self-improvement, it has to be done very carefully, very slowly,” Jones stated. “If you don’t feel right, you’re not right and you’re the best judge of your own condition. The bottom line is to always go to a professional that knows how to diagnose these.
“We feel with the Dynavision that we had a tool that is probably the most effective tool on the market because of its corporation of the mental side of cognitive processing, plus the motor-visual skill and motor movement side.”
With the possible effects down the road that can happen to the brain from a concussion ranging to the severe side, it is important to be careful with treatment and how you handle it. On that note, NASCAR felt the recent mandation of the baseline testing will help determining if a driver has a concussion and if they should sit out for a couple of weeks.
