Trauma Week: Day 3: "I Feel Foggy"

On November 30th, our speaker was Dr. Rippey, and he was teaching us about concussions as that's what he does for the school; look at the sports ball kids' concussions. He starts us off with concussion symptoms that don’t always occur right after the injury. The patient in question describes his head as “foggy”; light noise bothers him, and has headaches. He went on to diagnose a concussion next, which made me feel like I had a concussion. The reason why I felt like this was that I was his example. The concust test is called the SCAT 5. It included a balance test, which I failed and nearly kicked Dr. Rippey, and an eye coordination test which made my head hurt a lot, but I did fine on the light eye dilation test. Knowing your patient is also important because part of the test can also be naming the months backward, but apparently, there are people like me who don’t know the months forwards; therefore, that wouldn’t be that helpful. Concussions are also a whole lot more serious than I previously thought them to be because underlying conditions like depression, anxiety, and ADHD can worsen after a concussion. Concussions can be worse for some people than others, as some can have lifelong impacts, and others fade after a few weeks. Lifelong symptoms can include early dementia, Parkinson's, depression, and anxiety. The more concussions you get, the higher risk you are at for lifelong symptoms. When a student is diagnosed with a concussion, they should rest for one to two days and then slowly get back into exercise, starting with a brisk walk. We then watch a video of football (which surprisingly doesn’t yield the most concussions) as a player gets a head injury, that’s likely a concussion, three days before another game where they get another head injury that’s said to be a concussion. This is especially dangerous because another sudden head injury after a concussion can lead to death. Dr. Rippey honed in on why something, in my opinion, that really isn’t taken that seriously is really serious and that I should probably get more sleep, so I don’t walk around looking concust.