How to Treat a Concussion at Home
Rest is a vital aspect of treating a concussion. But it’s not the only thing you should be doing. A good concussion recovery includes exercise and cognitive stimulation. When you get a concussion, you’ll experience inflammation and a temporary breakdown of small structures in and around the brain cells at the injury site. Because of that, the affected cells can’t signal for oxygen [5]. When they don’t get enough oxygen, they can’t complete the cognitive processes such as seeing, thinking, or reading they were trying to achieve. As a result, other neural pathways pick up that task, but it’s harder on your brain.
Your brain will return to the normal, more effective neural pathways [6] when inflammation goes down. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. When it doesn’t, patients can be left with lingering symptoms for weeks, months, or even years.