What We Treat

Post-concussion syndrome treatment in Vancouver, WA.

The scan was clean, so you were told to rest and wait it out. Months later the store is still too loud. A cause-first evaluation names what is actually driving it, one-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist.

Screen tolerance Dizziness and balance Brain fog Book My Visit

Sound Familiar?

Still dealing with this months later?

  • Fluorescent lights in a grocery aisle and you need to be outside
  • Twenty minutes of screen time before the headache clocks in
  • Losing the thread mid-sentence and hoping nobody noticed
  • Turning your head too fast in the car and the world lags a beat behind
  • Weeks in a dark room that did not fix a single thing
  • Being told it should have cleared up by now, as though that helps

Two or more? Keep reading.

Why It Happens

Rest was the first advice. It was never the whole plan.

A concussion is more an energy problem than a bruise. The brain burns more fuel to do less, and the systems that normally share the work fall out of step with each other: the eyes, the inner ear, and the neck. Symptoms stick around because those three stayed out of step long after the first injury settled.

Early rest helps. Extended rest usually does not, because tolerance shrinks to match whatever you keep asking of it. That is how six weeks in a dark room can leave you more sensitive, not less. A cause-first evaluation sorts out which system is actually driving your symptoms, and how much of it is the fatigue sitting underneath all three. Those get different work.

Woman holding her temple with a pained expression, a common post-concussion headache

The Honest Truth

Time alone has not fixed it. That is the information.

If you keep waiting

  • Your tolerance for light, noise and screens keeps shrinking to match what you avoid
  • Work, school and driving stay on hold, with no date written next to any of them
  • Poor sleep, low mood and neck pain start feeding the symptoms you started with

If you start this week

  • You leave visit one knowing which system is driving it: eyes, inner ear, neck or fatigue
  • Exposure gets dosed on purpose, so tolerance grows instead of quietly shrinking
  • You get a plan with an endpoint, and a clear signal for when to progress

Nobody regrets starting too early. A clean scan was never the same thing as a clean bill of health.

How We Treat It

The same four phases. Built for symptoms that overstayed.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here is what the four phases look like when a concussion did not clear on schedule.

Starts visit one

Pain

Settle the system down.

We find your current ceiling for light, noise, screens and head motion, then work under it deliberately. Neck and headache drivers get treated by hand.

Once we have a baseline

Prime

Get the systems back in step.

Graded vision, balance and head-motion work, dosed so you build tolerance without paying for it the next day. Small on purpose, and repeated.

Once the basics hold

Perform

Take your week back.

Screens, driving, the store, the classroom, the shift. Real tasks, graded up, with your therapist watching exactly where it starts to fall apart.

Reviewed as you go

Prevent

Hold the ground you took.

A routine that survives a bad night, an energy plan for heavy weeks, and a written way to handle a flare without losing a month. That is the endpoint.

I have been suffering from the effects of post concussion syndrome and was referred to Megan at The Gabbert Clinic. She has been an AMAZING OT-always informative, encouraging and attentive. The other staff at the clinic have been friendly and accommodating in scheduling and welcoming me. They have made this healing process so much easier and less stressful, I cannot thank you all enough. ❤️

Shared by Ramona M. · Post-concussion syndrome

What people arrive with: months of rest, a clean scan, and a store they still cannot walk into

What happens here: the driver gets named, then dosed on purpose instead of avoided

Post-concussion syndrome One-on-one, every visit

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for concussion symptoms.

Your symptoms are real, and a normal scan is what we expect to see. Imaging shows structure. Persistent concussion symptoms come from systems that are out of step with each other: the eyes, the inner ear, the neck, and the fatigue sitting underneath all three. None of that shows on a scan. It does show up on an evaluation, which is where we start.

Sessions are dosed under your current ceiling, not over it. That is what the Pain phase is for: we find what light, noise, screens and head motion you can handle today, and we work below that line on purpose. If something flares, we adjust the dose rather than tell you to push through. You set the ceiling. We work the edge of it.

You get a plan with an endpoint, not an open string of appointments. Your therapist maps the four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and names what each one has to accomplish before the next begins. You will always know which phase you are in and what is left. Anyone who quotes you an exact number before evaluating you is guessing.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person from our front desk calls you back to get you scheduled. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Mon–Fri 7:00am–5:00pm · Sat–Sun closed
  • (360) 989-1200 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • One-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist, every visit

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Care this good, this close.

Gabbert Clinic