Sports medicine is the comprehensive care of the athlete. Our Sports Medicine program has been set up to where we have athletic trainers at a lot of our local high schools. Having conversations with those athletic trainers, we usually get a patient in that day of the injury, if not the very next morning. Jalen had an injury running into a wall in the outfield playing baseball.
Jalen Hines, Austin, Indiana:
I was going for a fly ball and ran into a fence, hit my head, and knocked the breath out of me. I got back up and was really dizzy. I had never had a headache like that before, and certain things were making my head hurt, like lights and noise. I figured I might have had a concussion.
Dr. Davis:
These are all classic signs of concussion. A concussion is defined as a transient disturbance in brain function. Usually what we do is use either something called computerized impact testing or a sideline concussion assessment tool, which is a paper form of a diagnostic evaluation. What we did for Jalen is took him out of really stimulating brain activity, had him completely rest for a couple of days, and then started him on a couple of natural vitamins that have been proven most recently in the literature to help with neuro-regeneration.
Hines:
I had to take two weeks off from all sports that I was playing. Then, I started to feel a little more normal, no more head pain.
Dr. Davis:
As he progressed from day-to-day, we saw from testing and taxing his brain a little bit more that he could continue to work without any symptoms or problems. Eventually, we got him back to the sport that he loves, got him back to playing baseball without any other repercussions or other injuries.
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The Sports Medicine Program at Baptist Health Floyd consists of a comprehensive lineup of specialists who team up to treat athletes of all ages and abilities. Middle and high school athletes, college athletes and recreational athletes at any level are evaluated and treated.
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