What Is Neurorehabilitation?

“Your body can withstand almost anything, it’s your mind you have to convince.¹”

The brain is an essential part of the flow between mind and body. The brain is the gatekeeper, allowing people to do the simplest tasks, from going for a nice walk in the sun to taking your fingers on a walk across the keyboard during a busy day of work. We have all heard the phrase “No Pain, No gain”, from Muhammed Ali to Gayle Moher. It resonates throughout the gym with all the beefcakes and gym rats. Though the phrase is true, it is important to push and challenge your body. This is not the key to sound function between the body and mind. This becomes particularly pertinent for those who’ve suffered injuries, not only in the brain but also in the body, and look for a fast recovery. The phrase of this article is “No brain, no gain”.

The key factor here is formally known as neurological rehabilitation and is a crucial piece to movement recovery. An injury can be highly debilitating, whether it’s to the brain or body, and it can be a long journey to recovery. However, the fact of the matter is the more you do the better you get.² But it begins with your first step and this process can vary from person to person depending on the severity of the injury.³ 

An injury is debilitating both physically and mentally, and regaining the balance between your brain and body function isn’t easy. Though there are a number of exercises and tools available to achieve this balance again. As per the words of Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do”. So it is a matter of achieving a healthy balance, while still continuing to challenge yourself after any sort of trauma.⁴ 

Overview

Neurorehabilitation programs are a lot more practical than you might think, whether it be a disease, injury, or a nervous system disorder, the brain can be affected by this. These programs are run for various reasons from improving function, to reducing symptoms with the overall goal of improving an individual's health and function in day-to-day life.

Causes of neurological problems and conditions

There are a number of different reasons that neurological problems arise, although the key here is that there must be a flow between the mind and body. When trauma is experienced, your mind is a vital contributor, and not only can it be affected it can also contribute to the healing process that comes afterward. Some examples of the conditions in which neurological trauma occurs include:⁵ 

• Vascular disorders: ischemic strokes, hemorrhagic strokes, subdural hematoma, and transient ischemic attacks
• Infections: meningitis, encephalitis, polio, and brain abscesses
• Brain and spinal cord injury
• Structural or neuromuscular disorders: bell palsy, cervical spondylosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, brain or spinal cord tumors, peripheral neuropathy, muscular dystrophy, myasthenia gravis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome
• Functional disorders: headache, seizure disorder, dizziness, and neuralgia
• Degenerative disorders: Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and Huntington Chorea

Symptoms that may prompt the need for neurorehabilitation

The main symptom of neurorehabilitation is trauma, full stop. It’s all good and well when a doctor sends you off after your injury. The real matter consists predominantly on your recovery. 

As per the words of Usain Bolt “Worrying gets you nowhere. If you turn up worrying about how you’re going to perform, you’ve already lost. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself.”

Your doctors are not mind readers, and they truly are there to help. Although, it’s up to you to decide what you need to reach your new normal. Ultimately though, with the proper team, rehabilitation can be achieved after any sort of trauma. The reason the mind is such a vital contributor to the function and recovery of the body is that the mechanics and motion of the body are all orchestrated through our neural networks. This need isn’t only limited to brain injuries. When someone has a body injury it can be just as taxing on our mental health and mental health is the key to a healthy and quick recovery, and that varies from injury to injury especially if it’s compounded.  

Who can benefit from neurorehabilitation program?

A healthy mind can benefit all individuals, active or static. Those particularly requiring neuro-rehabilitation are active individuals such as athletes, dancers, bodybuilders, individuals that have suffered physical injuries (brain, body), and any other sort of compiled trauma. This is especially pertinent to intensive athletes. Despite overruling invincibility, likely spurred by copious amounts of testosterone and gym brah hype, do not discount yourself. The phrase no pain no gain, as well as the pump someone might feel while working out, formally refers to myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic growth. Although, if an individual doesn’t listen to their body, muscles can tear and cause deteriorative and counterproductive effects. Listening to your body and mind, along with working with a team of experienced individuals, is essential to recovery from any athletic practice.

Neurorehabilitation team members

Many skilled professionals are part of the neurological rehab team, including:⁵

• Neurologist/neurosurgeon
• Orthopedist/orthopedic surgeon 
• Physiatrist
• Specialty doctors
• Rehabilitation specialists
• Registered dietitian
• Physical therapist
• Occupational therapist
• Speech/language therapist
• Social worker
• Psychologist/psychiatrist
• Recreational therapist
• Case manager
• Audiologist
• Chaplain
• Vocational counselor

Summary

Neurorehabilitation is a highly pertinent field to daily function, as well as synchronicity between the mind and body. When someone has to recover from a physical injury, rest and nutrition are important factors along with challenging the body to reach normal function again. This challenge of the body is particularly important though because with this, the body and mind become in tune again. As an individual furthers the complexity of the challenge or the load they put on the body it becomes stronger, both in terms of the synaptic connections within the neural network, as well as the intensity applied to the musculoskeletal system. In turn, this sparks the neural network that may have previously been damaged. Whether it be the result of a serious brain injury or the damage to your mental health as a result of a serious bodily injury. These tools can provide you the opportunity to get back in sync with your body and mind.