Dark room therapy is a thing of the past. The concussion rehabilitation world no longer sees this as the way we should be handling patients, and there’s a good reason for it.

In years past, patients who had concussions may have been told by their medical practitioners to go into a dark room for a while and do, nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. This seemed to help right off the hop because, I mean, a dark room can’t make your symptoms worse can it?

The problem becomes leaving the dark room. Patients were told to leave their dark room when they felt better. Feeling good surrounded by darkness and silence though, is very different from feeling good in regular life. If you’re never being exposed to the things that cause symptoms in the first place, those symptoms are unlikely to get better. In fact, your body may even become MORE sensitive to these things than they were when you started the dark room therapy in the first place!

Modern concussion rehabilitation instead focuses on progressive exposure to stimulus that can cause exposure. An analogy that can be helpful in managing symptoms can be the stoplight analogy that I outline in the video, emphasizing time spent in the “yellow light” zone where there are some symptoms, but not too much of a worsening in overall feelings.

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Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
1:17 – What is dark room therapy?
2:42 – Why doesn’t it work?
5:12 – What do we do then?
9:37 – Thanks For Watching!

So why watch A Physio Named Jonah?
For free videos about the human body, injuries, rehabilitation, the world of Physiotherapy, and whatever other shenanigans comes along. Maybe you can learn something new and not feel like you’re stuck in a classroom waiting for the bell to ring.

A Physio Named Jonah is a channel created by, well, exactly who you think. The channel features primarily Physiotherapy based topics, or things that it would make sense for a Physical Therapist to weigh in on. The goal is to make these often sterile topics interesting and easily accessible to anyone with a few laughs (or forced exhales from your nose if you’re alone) along the way.

Jonah is a Canadian Physiotherapist who works with a primarily outpatient orthopaedic population at a clinic in Sudbury, Ontario. He completed his Master’s of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto, with his Bachelors of Sciences specialized in Human Kinetics coming from The University of Ottawa. He is also considered by his parents, fiancee, and 2 dogs to be a pretty cool guy.

#physiotherapy
#physicaltherapy
#rehab
#physio
#concussion
#concussiontherapy
#headinjury

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