Concussion treatment in Hillsborough.

No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Diagnosing a concussion is a physician’s job. If you have taken a hit to the head and have not been seen by a doctor, that is your first call, not this one. What a physical therapist does is assess and treat the systems producing the symptoms afterwards: the neck, the vestibular system, the visual system, and your tolerance for exertion. That work runs alongside your medical team, never instead of it.

Not for long. A short spell of relative rest in the first day or two is standard, but the guidance moved away from extended dark-room rest years ago, because prolonged rest tends to stretch symptoms out rather than shorten them. What replaces it is graded activity: gentle aerobic work kept below the symptom threshold, hands-on treatment for the neck, and vestibular and visual retraining, all dosed to challenge the system without flooding it. Getting that dose right is most of the job.

Your physician makes the clearance decision. What physical therapy contributes is the evidence that decision deserves: how the neck, balance, eye movement and exertion tolerance actually perform under testing, and how the body responds to sport-specific load. Progress gets retested rather than assumed, and the findings go back to your doctor. The initial testing happens in a full 60 minutes, one-on-one with a Doctor of Physical Therapy, and retesting is folded into your 45-minute follow-up visits.