Your brain has 3 primary sensory for detecting movement.
- Proprioception – movement feedback from joints and muscles
- Vestibular – movement information from your inner ears
- Visual
Your brain is constantly comparing these 3 sensory systems with each other to get an accurate idea of how your hear and body is moving. When one of these sensory systems does not function as anticipated I.e. your Visual and Vestibular system indicate that you have rotated to the right but your Proprioceptive system indicates that you are staying still then the conflict between these systems raises an alarm and stimulates your sympathetic nervous system (flight/fight reflexes). Some people feel dizzy and nauseous, others headaches. Symptoms will vary but the cause is the mismatch between the 3 sensory systems.
Post Concussion Syndrome can have 6 different sub types and you may have a combination of the 6. Cervicogenic Post Concussion Syndrome occurs when the proprioception from your neck does not match the sensory input from your vestibular or visual system. Our goal then is to normalise the input from your 3 main movement sensory to decrease the mismatch and reduce the symptoms from your Post Concussion Syndrome.
One basic exercise that you can do to begin improving your proprioception is to increase the strength of your neck using this type of exercise;
Or
Retraining a sensory mismatch can be challenging. If you feel that either of the above exercises aggravates your symptoms then stop the exercise and get in contact with Dr. Hansen for a FREE 20 minute phone consult to find an easier option.
