Difficulties Reading After a Concussion | Broadview Spine & Health

Patients who have recently sustained head trauma and are now recovering from a concussion, often have a lot of questions.

Aside from the many other challenges that can accompany a concussion, perhaps you’ve noticed that a once-simple task like reading has now become difficult? If so, you’re not alone.

In this article we’ll go through some exercises for concussion patients that should eliminate all difficulties and allow you to fully recover from a concussion.

Incentives for Improvement & Recovery

One of the most important aspects of health care for concussion and traumatic brain injury patients is to give something new and stimulating, something that is simple and that can be done on a regular basis.

When it comes to brain injuries and recovery, it’s all about making the necessary neuro-plastic changes to restore functions back to previous levels. This can be accomplished through a set of regular exercises.

Once a person take their first steps on the road to recovery from injury, it’s essential to have something that will motivate you to continue exercising more and more, leading to a full recovery. The same goes for people who have sustained head trauma and are having difficulties reading.

The Reasons for Having Difficulties Reading After a Concussion

After a sustaining a head trauma, certain eye mechanisms that you’re using for reading aren’t performing their function properly. Head trauma causes these mechanisms to go out of order.

Depending on the area of the brain affected by your head injury, it’s quite possible that you might have lost the ability to perform certain types of eye movements needed for reading. The most important task here is to fix your gaze and lock your eyes on the words you’re reading. This is all temporary, as it’s possible to recover from such a trauma.

It’s common to have cognitive issues after traumatic brain injury which affect your concentration and attention, memory, communication, judgment, decision-making, problem-solving, and reasoning.

What to Do After a Concussion

Concussion patients usually experience concentration and attention problems because the brain area that sustained damage isn’t functioning properly. To read without any difficulties, one must improve concentration and attention. This can be accomplished by following a straightforward routine:

Focus on one thing at a time
Decrease all distractions
Start practicing your concentration and attention skills

You can focus on practical activities such as reading one sentence at the time and then gradually make it harder on yourself by reading more and more while including distractions as well.

Know Your Limits and Take Breaks When You Feel Tired

Reading also includes the ability to process and understand information and to do that, you’ll also need to take some important steps. Make sure that your full and undivided attention is placed on your reading material. Before you move on, allow your brain to think about what you’ve just read and process it.

If needed, re-read the material again. For reading after a concussion, we suggest that you start reading slowly, as your ability to read needs time to restore. Practice makes perfect, so a positive attitude is a must if you’re to succeed in your efforts to restore your reading capability.

Concussion Recovery & Treatment Options

Whether you’re having troubles reading after a concussion, have balance issues, or have other symptoms, Broadview Health Centre can help. We use a wide range of evidence based treatments to help our patients overcome their concussion symptoms. Each concussion is different from one person to the next.

Once we can get a diagnosis, we can help develop a custom tailored treatment plan for all your symptoms. Some of our concussion treatments include:

How Broadview Can Help

If you have more questions about concussion recovery and want to schedule an appointment, contact us today. We take pride in being able to help patients on the road to concussion recovery. Not sure if your symptoms are concussion related? You can also try our online concussion testing tool to help make sense of your symptoms!