Concussion symptoms can be effectively alleviated using osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), data from two case studies found.
A concussion is a type of brain injury that typically occurs in athletes who have received a hard hit to the head. Symptoms, which range from headaches to nausea, can take weeks to resolve. Since concussions have recently been linked to long-term brain health complications, researchers have been studying them and potential treatments more in depth.
In the first case study, doctors examined a 27-year-old male patient who sustained a concussion in a snowboarding accident. The man had suffered from headache, dizziness, nausea and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The man received one session of OMT. After his 25-minute long treatment, he had no longer experienced three of his four symptoms. A subsequent Sensory Organization Test (SOT), which measures balance, was conducted and the researchers reported that the patient's SOT score had improved from 76 to 81.
"OMT has long been an instrumental tool in treating athletes," said Dr. Naresh Rao, an osteopathic sports medicine physician. "With manual techniques including craniosacral therapy, we as osteopathic physicians have the ability to help the body restore the flow of cerebrospinal fluid through the central nervous system to promote healing and get our athletes concussion-related symptoms back to their normal activities."
In the second case, doctors tested the effects of one OMT session on a 16-year-old girl who had three head injuries with her most recent one being a head-to-head collision. The teenager had experienced concussion symptoms that included a headache, mood swings, memory complications, concentration problems and fatigue three weeks after her last incident.
The researchers found that the teenager's scores on several measurements of concussions improved after just one treatment session. The girl's Initial Concussion Symptom Score (CSS) declined from 53 to 22, and her score on the Balanced Error Scoring System (BESS) fell from 22 to 17. After five more sessions, the girl's CSS fell to 0 and her BESS fell to 14.
"These cases are consistent with the clinical experiences of osteopathic physicians who use OMT as part of a multidisciplinary approach to concussion," said Rao. "While the mechanisms of healing are not well understood with concussion, formal studies measuring OMT's impact on recovery and quality of life are much needed to demonstrate its efficacy as a viable therapy where there are very limited therapies to date."
Rao, who was not involved in the case studies, will be the physician for the USA Water Polo team in Rio de Janeiro for the upcoming summer Olympics that will begin on Aug. 5.
The findings from these cases suggest that OMT can be effective for a wide range of conditions, especially for athletes. In previous research, the team at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth had found that OMT was able to lower pain and improve function in patients with chronic low back pain.
The case studies were published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.
