EP 119: Cognitive Intolerance: The Concussion Symptom We Don't Talk About Enough

And so in this episode, we're gonna talk about what cognitive load is, why that makes, can make recovery so challenging, and we're gonna talk about how do we start to return to work.

What does this process look like? On this ep- on this podcast, we've talked about return to play, we've talked about return to school.

Uh, we haven't really done an episode that talks about cognitive load and return to work.

So that is what we're gonna dive into today, so much so that I took notes.

I prepared.

So if you see me looking off to the side, if you're actually watching the amazing YouTube videos that this podcast is filmed on, by the way.

I know most of you probably are listening to my voice, so you could care fucking less if I'm scrolling on my phone or looking to the side, reminding myself of what I wanted to say today.

But I need to say, like, if you are a video watcher, as I talk about not watching videos [laughs] if you are a video watcher and you enjoy YouTube, we do have a YouTube channel, and these podcasts are all filmed absolutely fucking beautifully, uh, with the team I work with at Vera Creative in Nanaimo, so check them out because they're really fun.

Um, okay, anyways, tangent.

[laughs] Moving along, let's talk about just, like, the brain.

Let's talk about concussion for a second, right? So concussion, when we come back to it, concussion is a functional disturbance in how the brain ultimately communicates, right? We know, we know you don't see it on MRI.

You don't see it on CT scan, right? The way the challenges or the dysfunctions of a concussion show up is in functional testing, right? So what's happening with your reading speed? How are your eyes moving together? What's happening with your balance? What are your eyes doing? What is this finger, nose, finger test looking at, right? We have a whole repertoire of tests we do to see how the function of the brain has been impacted.

Cognition is no different.

When we're ha- when we're in this acute stage of concussion, and then we can also talk about this later, we are in an energy crisis, which means the brain needs more, it doesn't have the energy it needs to ultimately do the tasks or functions that we wanna do.

We know that there could be blood flow impairment issues.

We know that there can be, I'm saying can because, I'm saying can, neuroinflammation issues, right? There's ATP depletion.

There's lack of energy, really, is what that comes into.

And so when we're looking at, as we start to improve activity...

There's a hair on the microphone, friends.

Um, anything we do that challenges our brain uses energy, right? Thinking uses energy.

Problem-solving uses energy.

Processing speech uses energy.

Switching between tasks uses energy.Moving your body uses energy.

Doing your sport.

Right, so you get the point.