Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Healing Concussions with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: Dr. Daphne Denham on Brain Trauma & Recovery
In this powerful episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, we dive deep into the future of concussion treatment and brain trauma recovery with trailblazing physician Dr. Daphne Denham, one of the nation’s leading experts in hyperbaric medicine.
Dr. Denham shares her pioneering approach to treating repetitive brain injuries—particularly in athletes, youth sports, and military veterans—using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). Discover how this cutting-edge treatment works at the cellular level to heal the brain, reduce inflammation, and restore cognitive function after concussions.
From her early experiences in the medical field to becoming a leading voice in brain health advocacy, Dr. Denham walks us through the urgent need for:
· Concussion awareness and early detection, especially in children
· The dangers of untreated sports injuries
· Innovative assessment tools for tracking brain health
· A national shift toward proactive prevention and recovery protocols
· This episode is a must-watch for parents, coaches, healthcare professionals, veterans, and anyone passionate about mental health, brain healing, and safe sports practices.
📣 Call to Action:
If you or someone you love is navigating concussion recovery or wants to learn more about cutting-edge brain injury treatments, this episode is for you.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
01:00 Dr. Daphne Denham: A Pioneer in Hyperbaric Medicine
02:56 Understanding Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
06:11 Mechanisms of Healing with Hyperbaric Therapy
09:01 Treatment Protocols for Concussions
11:36 Assessing Recovery and Return to Play
13:48 The Importance of Accommodations in Schools
17:30 Dr. Denham's Journey into Concussion Treatment
20:48 The Gap in Knowledge About Concussions
23:49 The Cranky Teenager List and Mental Health
26:21 Concussion Awareness and Community Support
26:48 The Importance of Education in Concussion Awareness
29:08 Understanding Brain Injuries and Their Impact
32:01 Challenges in Concussion Treatment and Awareness
34:30 Preventing Future Concussions
39:21 Innovative Assessment Tools for Brain Health
42:21 The Need for Comprehensive Brain Health Protocols
45:54 Advocating for Change in Co
Join Blue Fusion and Horse Soldier Bourbon for the inaugural Special Operations Army vs. Navy Tailgate Event
Celebrate with us and support veteran wellness. Your participation helps fund The Mac Parkman Foundation's Veteran Program and Team American Freedom.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation. The Mack Parkman Foundation. Our podcast is focused on the issue of repetitive brain trauma in the forms of repetitive head impacts from sports and repetitive blast exposure for our veterans, and what these impacts are doing they're changing the brains of our kids, athletes and veterans. That's resulting in the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country, and this is why we reach out to an amazing group of researchers and scientists and players and athletes and people that have been struggling with conditions for years, in order to bring you the information, because this is not taught in any medical, nursing or psychological course in this country. Everybody that you meet will be unprepared to talk about this issue, and you need to protect your kids. You need to protect yourself.
Speaker 1:So today we have another amazing guest, dr Daphne Denham, dialing in from Fargo, north Dakota. She's a pioneering physician in hyperbaric medicine and concussion treatment. After completing medical school at the University of Louisville and surgical training at the University of Southern Florida, right here in Tampa of Louisville and surgical training at the University of Southern Florida right here in Tampa, dr Denham shifted her focus to wound care and hyperbaric medicine while raising her six children. Her passion for concussion treatment began in 2015, when she witnessed firsthand how hyperbaric oxygen therapy HBOT could accelerate recovery. Since then, she has dedicated nearly a decade to refining protocols and collecting data to revolutionize concussion care, and in 2018, she partnered with entrepreneur Gary Thelmson to open Healing with Hyperbarics of North Dakota, expanding access to these groundbreaking treatments because, as we're going to talk about, this is not available down the street. With over 100,000 concussions treated and patients traveling from hundreds of miles away, dr Denim is not only a leader in the hyperbaric community, but a driving force in refining concussion recovery. Dr Daphne, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much. It's truly a pleasure and, as what you are doing, education is beyond the word of the day. But we've got to education and awareness. Get it out there.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am. So you said I mean you. So you operate a hyperbaric center here in Fargo.
Speaker 2:In Fargo and in Northbrook Illinois.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:That's the one I started in 2015. And we that one is still open, even though I'm in Fargo.
Speaker 1:Nice man, very, very interesting, and so you offer, I guess, hyperbaric. You know, do you have a hard chamber or a soft chamber, and can you explain to our audience what the difference is between them?
Speaker 2:So we have in Fargo six Sechrist hard chambers and in Northbrook we have four hard chambers and I use the example of someone saying I need pain medicine. Does pain medicine mean over-the-counter Tylenol or does pain medicine mean IV morphine and not to get into opioids? But soft chambers are like going to the drugstore and buying over-the-counter Tylenol. And the level of therapy that we use with the hard chambers is like requiring a physician and a prescription and much more concentrated, much more therapeutic drugs.
Speaker 2:During a treatment for concussions we often raise the oxygen concentration in the liquid part of blood so not on red blood cells but in the liquid part of blood by 1,000%. And why that's important for concussions and for subconcussive injuries or the blast effects for veterans etc. Is that brain cells are like the elite athletes. They are consuming much more oxygen than we moms sitting on the benches. But after an injury, be it sub-concussive, full-blown concussion etc. A brain cell is benched. It is not getting the energy that it needs to function at the elite level that it was. In addition, it is injured. So not only is it getting baseline enough, it's not getting more than enough to repair.
Speaker 2:So by raising the oxygen concentration up with hyperbaric oxygen in the liquid part of blood that allows the oxygen to diffuse into the brain cells better, better we are able to get enough oxygen for those brain cells to repair, basically unbench them and put them back into the gape. In addition, we are seeing fewer repeat concussions, subsequent concussions. I've been doing this 10 years. We see a few patients back, but not at the rates that are published of subsequent concussions. So likely the response of hyperbaric, of turning off that brain inflammation that we get turned on with a concussion that primes the brain for subsequent concussions and causes so many different problems leading to CTE. We are turning that inflammatory response off. Best we can tell by the objective tests we're using.
Speaker 1:Wow, and what are the mechanisms by which hyperbaric in your words, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is helping to heal those bench brain cells? What are they doing with this oxygen? Because don't they need, like protein and other nutrients, to heal as well?
Speaker 2:The brain basically would survive on just glucose, which is why everyone who goes to a ketogenic diet, the South Beach Atkins, would get headaches Because it takes. The brain wants glucose. If you're going to do something else, there's a transition. So the brain is content with glucose and oxygen. That simple content with glucose and oxygen that simple.
Speaker 2:After an injury and there's an article by Dr Christopher Geise called the neurometabolic cascade of a concussion that I love and after an injury there is a huge demand for more energy for those cells to repair. Demand for more energy for those cells to repair. But he demonstrates in lab animals they've shown a decrease in blood flow right after a concussion. So the simple fact is hyperbaric is hyperoxygenating the tissue, giving it enough oxygen to repair. Hyperbaric also reduces swelling, even mild swelling, like when you stub your toe. There is mild swelling of the brain, maybe not detectable by studies, but when you hit your brain against your skull, there's a tiny bit of swelling that pushes against those precious vessels and decreases blood flow to the injury, so decreasing the swelling. We open those blood vessels back up and restore blood flow to what it was before the injury and inflammatory cells are turned on different mechanisms, but a low oxygen environment causes even more inflammation and there are multiple research studies showing hyperbaric oxygen turns off inflammatory cells inflammatory cells.
Speaker 1:Wow, and we do know that it's the long-term exposure to repetitive head impacts that creates that long-term inflammatory environment. That is absolutely contradictory to brain health and brain growth. And the swelling also reduces those vessels. So that makes absolute perfect sense. Wow. So when you put these people in those hard caskets there you know the capsules I keep thinking like Star Trek, right when, at the end of one of them, when they had all these bodies in those chambers. So what's the treatment protocol? I mean, what do you when, you, when, when folks travel to you? I mean, what do you when you, when folks travel to?
Speaker 2:you are she. We look at how long ago was your concussion, how many previous concussions have you had? Were you still having symptoms before you got this concussion or is this all just sub-concussive hits? And we have multiple different protocols that we start at a starting point and my technicians are incredible checking in with patients every 10 to 20 minutes to make sure that the protocol that we're on is working and we actually progress from a 1.5 atmosphere, which is what everyone is using for post-concussive syndrome, ptsd for the veterans we actually progress over the course of either a single treatment for acute concussions or multiple treatments for post-concussive syndrome, making sure that we are not causing a headache.
Speaker 2:The way hyperbaric gets rid of swelling is by vasoconstricting or tightening the vessels, and there's already abnormal tightening of the vessels from a concussion, so we want to make sure we're not tightening too quickly. But so we started a starting point and just keep working out with each individual. But it's about an hour for the brain and ideally with acute concussions it is two treatments a day until they are sustained, symptom free, more than 12 hours out from a treatment and no symptoms, but full brain activity back and our average for acute concussions is only four treatments if we see patients within the first week.
Speaker 2:So we're not talking about a huge number of treatments. We're talking about potentially two days. When we see patients who are injured the night before, hopefully by day three or four after injury, they're sitting in homeroom as if they've not had a concussion.
Speaker 1:And when you assess them to say, hey, you know you're back, you know you return to play protocols, you're able to go back. What is that based on?
Speaker 2:So we have used several objective tests. We've used right eye, we've used brain scope. We're looking at neurocatch right now but ironically the objective test fit with our subjective assessment, our subjective assessment. But we have patients do a brain test. Not the return to play physical activity. If you look at the five-day return to play or day six, it's riding an exercise bike. It's, you know, non-contact drills For athletes. That's all physical activity. We send them to the sports store.
Speaker 2:Here in Fargo we have Shields. It's a two-story sporting goods store with a Ferris wheel in the middle of it. It is circuit overload for the brain. But if someone who's had a concussion is fully treated, they can walk through Shields for an hour and it's not too much sensory input. They don't get a headache, they're not light sensitive. Or we send them back to school. I personally think it's medical malpractice that we allow athletes to return to play if they are still on accommodations for school. If we have accommodations for school, we are saying the brain is not functioning as it should, but yet we're letting them go back to a contact sport.
Speaker 2:That should be not allowed.
Speaker 1:So explain to me. I've never heard this term. Accommodations for sport, I mean for school. What's that all about?
Speaker 2:When the brain is not functioning correctly. Too much activity brings on symptoms. That's why they wear sunglasses. They avoid rock concerts. You know brain injured individuals know when enough is enough and too much is too much. So schools will often say you can eat lunch in the library so you're not in the cafeteria with all the sensory, the noise, the people, all of the activity. You can pass before or after normal passing periods. If you go down a high school hallway during passing periods, talk about brain circuit overload. Everybody's talking running around. So we need to test the brain and make sure the brain is able to take all of this activity and is functioning basically at 100% before we let athletes back on the field.
Speaker 1:So is that, and who makes that assessment?
Speaker 2:Different people. Some schools it's an athletic trainer, some places have a PsyD, a psychologist approved, some places it's a medical, it's a physician. But I treated. When we first opened Fargo I treated a physician's son four previous concussions. Don't worry, I've been cleared to go back to football. Concussions Don't worry, I've been cleared to go back to football.
Speaker 2:We did a right eye test for him and he failed it miserably and I said I can let you be our first concussion for the season, or I can sleep better by treating you now and then letting you play with a healthier brain. And sure enough, his right eye score went back up into the normal range. He came in laughing after his fourth treatment and he said even my dad noticed I'm better, all of my friends have noticed I'm better and he played the whole football season without a concussion. And that was five years ago. I haven't seen him since for a treatment. He's had no further injuries but he's still been playing football. They're not always in an organized sport. I used to laugh and say I put my sons in organized sports so they wouldn't do more damage to their brains and what they could find on their own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're always falling out of trees and whatever. Right, yeah, but you can't take that out. But we can take the RHI down or out of the sport by promoting more. I mean, trust me, you're always going to be in business. I wish not.
Speaker 2:Business will go down.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just talking. You know the kids that get in. I mean, you know the rollerblades and all this other stuff skateboards they're always going to be finding you. So how did you get in all this other stuff skateboards they're always going to be finding you. And so how did how did you get in all this? I mean you, you're, you know you. You went to surgery, surgical training, right, I mean you were a doctor, doctor and now this is your life. So how did you make that transition? Because, I mean, obviously it's your passion. This is amazing.
Speaker 2:After my fourth child I took a professional time out.
Speaker 1:I got tired of trying to be a boy With school or with kids, with kids. I had two more Professional mom, right, I mean, that's the way my wife would say it.
Speaker 2:I was a secret doctor and stay-at-home mom and, honestly, my boards were coming up and I needed to be hospital affiliated. I was not about to lose my surgery boards. So I started working in a wound and hyperbaric center. We had a patient with frostbite. Her toes were purple and dying and dying. We did a hyperbaric treatment and her toes were pink and viable and with four or five treatments, no problems. She saved all 10 toes. Wow.
Speaker 2:And then, two or three weekends later, I'm sitting in a volleyball tournament and if you've ever been to volleyball tournaments they have about 10 courts all lined up and all of these balls are flying. And one of my daughter's teammates had had multiple concussions. She just tossed her head back to get into position to play. Her head back to get into position to play and she just the head toss injured her inflamed brain enough. She excused herself and had to leave. And I'm sitting there thinking if we can save purple toes, what can we do for the break? So a few years later, the hospitals wouldn't work with me.
Speaker 2:I had to open my own center and, as fate would have it, my daughter had a concussion and, like all working parents, I left her with the babysitter, I went to work. I called home at lunch and she said I feel terrible. I feel terrible. She came in curled up in a fetal position, not moving at all, and we did a treatment which is now the basis of our acute concussion protocol. And she rolls over and she says okay, mom, how much longer do I have to be in here? And I thought why do we wait If we can make this much of a difference? Why let the brain see what it's going to do and the number of medical people who have said well, 90% of concussions are better in 10 days. But what's better? There was a survey of almost 15,000 high school athletes and almost 40% who had had a history of one or more concussions admitted to feelings of hopelessness and depression. So if we're 90% better in 10 days, how is it that 40% of patients with a history of a concussion are still having issues?
Speaker 1:Man, yeah, I mean, there's obviously a complete lack or gap in knowledge between even just concussions and concussion treatment. I didn't even know you could do a post-concussion syndrome test. Right that you can literally keep testing your kid, because when the doctor says two weeks at home and then clears them, well, you're trusting your doctor, right, You're, you know? You don't know but they don't know, and that's the yeah.
Speaker 2:So I have been fortunate to be able to speak to the North Dakota High School Athletic Association meeting and I tell the coaches and athletic trainers every year that the symptoms for post-concussion syndrome and you can have that from a concussion or from sub-concussive events and not really know one specific hit, but I call it the cranky teenager list and we can dismiss every one of the symptoms. They're more tired than usual, they're irritable, they're more emotional, they get headaches, they're more sad than usual, they're nervous, less emotional. I mean you can excuse away every one of the symptoms as well. Of course he is. He's playing football and practice is hard and he's got a test coming up and he wants to ask this girl out. And you start listing excuses. But when you take them all together, all of a sudden you recognize why am I checking positive for more than half of the symptoms? So if you have a cranky teenager, take a step back and make sure it's not from a head injury. And we need objective screening in pediatrician offices, every psychiatrist's office, before they put them on a medication, make sure it's not an underlying head injury, because the underlying head injury kids do not respond to the medications like true organic depressions, because they have a brain injury it's an injured brain that it doesn't matter how many serotonin uptake inhibitors you throw at them if
Speaker 2:their brain cells can't make serotonin because they're not getting enough oxygen and the inflammation is taking the oxygen away. You just keep upping that drug and the kids become more nauseous. And I know too much about that pathway and I can't tell you the number of kids I've seen over the years that when they start getting better I'll ask them how they are and they kind of get close to me and whisper I was in a deep dark hole. I never want to go back there. No one understands what I was going through and I'm so glad to be past it.
Speaker 1:You know, folks, this is what I'd like you to listen to, because my son is not here because of what Dr Denham just said. Everything that, mac, you know, displayed apathy. You know, we liked his room dark, we sleeping late. You know, we literally said exactly that he's playing football, he's growing up, he's uh, he's getting ready to join the army. We could, we literally explained away all these issues and we had, you know, and and our ignorance, and I am certain that what Dr Daphne's talking about could have absolutely helped my son, because these children do not tell us they're struggling, they love us. And my son's last words to one of his best friends, when he told him he was struggling, not with suicidal ideation, just he didn't want to play football, he was tired, was I don't want to disappoint or let anybody down. And our children love us to the point where they will not tell us.
Speaker 1:And we have to be informed that this cranky teenager system which is an amazing way to say this is absolutely could be the result of contact sports. Contact sports, but unless you know that there is a correlation between long-term exposure, rhi or multiple concussions that have not healed, and this crankiness, guess what? Your kid is going to get drugged. They're going to go see a psychiatrist because they are cranky and they are depressed or whatever, and they're going to feed them medications and, because you do not know, they're going to keep playing these sports and then their brains are going to continue to degrade, like our sons, and spiral until they do something horrible. And this is why we exist. Daphne and Bruce are here to pass this information on, because you do not know. And now you have a better chance of making these decisions or at least you know, being aware that your child is not struggling because of you know, just depression.
Speaker 2:So, bruce, my daughter, who works in the Fargo Clinic, Menly, started a concussion awareness program program and we are trying to make sure that coaches, athletic trainers, but also all of your fellow teammates are aware of looking out for each other and when a teammate seems to have struggles or shares something like that, we have had patients come in and say I don't know why I'm here, but my teammates told me I should come and then we'll treat them and they'll come out and they'll say oh wow, they were right, I wasn't acting like myself. It's much more than just parents. It's got to be education across the board. We need to do a better job of educating our students in health class. We should have a concussion awareness day every year. Starting second grade up. We teach health, we teach diet and exercise, how to splint a broken arm. Why are we not teaching how to look out for and recognize brain injuries and brain injured?
Speaker 2:Individuals do not always know that they're injured. I've had countless patients that you know. A football player lost consciousness on the field, ambulance, hospital, ct, you've got a concussion. Fortunately his pediatrician knew me and said go see Denim. So Saturday after a Friday night football game, he comes in. I don't know why I'm here, I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK. And then, looking back, he just kept saying I'm OK. After his treatment he stood up and he was about six, two and I looked up at him and he said dude, I was totally messed up.
Speaker 2:An injured brain, can you know? A brain can say you broke your arm, it hurts, you need to go see somebody. An injured brain that message doesn't always get through. And the same with kids returning to play. Everybody says, oh, they lie because they want to get back to playing. Yes, they want to get back to playing, but they don't know that they're lying. We've got to incorporate objective tasks and better education and education to athletes that you know, if you feel a little off, let's test you. And some have said I don't want to admit to it because they'll just put me in a dark room. If we can also get the message out, no, we can treat you and within two days, three days, certainly less than a week, we're going to get you back on the field playing way better than you would be playing concussed. There's an enormous amount of education and awareness that we need to do at multiple levels.
Speaker 1:Multiple levels. I mean, yeah, it's, I mean it's all the way from, and I think the kids are. That's a very powerful message, because these children are now starting to get it. I mean, they don't have the religious fervor all the way from, and I think the kids are. That's a very powerful message, because these children are now starting to get it. I mean, they don't have the religious fervor for sports that you know their parents have, you know, for football or whatever sport that you're in. Uh, they're, they're, they. They value their brain, so they're they're more willing to listen now to you know, and and they take care of each other. So I think you know, starting that is uh, is um, you know is is important. How do you, um impart that knowledge? Is it like a seminar? Do you get them in the gym? Or you know, how do you? How do you give them that awareness training? Cause, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:We have worked out with a few teams and unfortunately some hospital systems try to block us because they pay for the athletic trainer and there's so much politics in medicine.
Speaker 1:but we're not going to waste time on that Wait, they tried to block you from giving concussion. What was their motive? Why would they not want you to speak on?
Speaker 2:They don't want the kids to know they can be treated with hyperbaric.
Speaker 1:Oh, because they don't provide it.
Speaker 2:Don't even, let's not go there.
Speaker 1:No, we need to. I mean only because you know people need to be aware that we are constantly talking to people like you that have modalities from, you know, photobiomodulation, tms, hbot, vagus, nerve stimulation, psychedelic therapies that are improving lives, and we're on this continuous, wide-ranging battlefront to make these modalities available to people that need them because, well, they work. I'm sorry, you know, it's not a pill that you take for the rest of your life. This stuff works, whether you get them back on the field, or you get them back in the police car, or you get them back on the job. These things work. So that is, yeah, it's absolutely one of the things we need to dial into, because it's the biggest impediment to adequate care for these injuries in this country, because all you're going to get are drugs and therapy and, I'm sorry, they don't fix a damaged brain, you know there is huge money in concussions not being healed oh.
Speaker 2:Medicine will. Even physicians that I have shared my objective data with have told patients of mine. You don't need to keep going for hyperbaric. It doesn't work, even after seeing objective data and we're hoping that will be published sometime 2025. And and there will be some physicians that get signature-required registered mail. A copy of my article.
Speaker 1:Ah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Because the game is over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, and then you got. You know, we just interviewed Joe Duterte with his big HBOT study down in Florida too, looking at that gold standard. It's all coming to a forefront here. You know where we have to start looking at alternatives and cheaper. I mean, you know what do you charge for a hyperbaric Like? So you know you get a patient.
Speaker 2:You know what do you charge to go in $225 in Fargo because our oxygen costs are so high. But we're meeting again with the oxygen supplier to work on that.
Speaker 1:And that's per treatment, that's for one treatment, and they could need whatever they need until they get it done.
Speaker 2:But we try to have packages of five, packages of 10, a payment plan. Most patient families would probably save money by doing acute concussion treatments up front than what they end up paying in co-pays for all of the physical therapy, occupational therapy, the MRI, the vision therapy, the vestibular therapy, not to mention how behind the student gets in school and how much time off of work parents take. We're slowly collecting that data as well to try to show private insurance companies it would be cheaper to take a more aggressive treat, a concussion approach.
Speaker 2:And especially if we can show that we can prevent concussions by preventing the subsequent concussions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean now going to that a little bit how do you prevent future concussions? I mean, if a kid's going to go out there and hit his head on a football field or something, I mean going to go out there and hit his head on a football field or something.
Speaker 2:I mean. What we find with subsequent concussions is it takes less of a hit and they end up having more symptoms, and what the animal models show is that brain inflammation that we've talked about keeps the brain crying, so it's easier to injure the next time, as if it has not been concussed. Then they can go back out and not have more subsequent concussions. We often see someone had a concussion, then two years later they had another one, then a year later and then six months later. The interval shrink.
Speaker 1:I just don't want parents to think that, you know, by going to HBOT training you can play sports and they may be made safe, because when it comes to RHI, you just cannot avoid the damage that's going to occur from long-term exposure. We are talking about sports that are being played. I mean we can't stop that right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, but we screened a football team and five of the players really performed poorly in our screening, so we gave them each 10 treatments and their performance on the screening test went back up into the normal range okay one of the things we should be doing for contact sports is screening at the beginning of the season and at the end of the season, so we catch everyone who has changes, whether it's a concussion they didn't report or an accumulation of subconcussive events.
Speaker 1:So this is not. I mean I know there's some kind of like the impact test is out there, but even that there's not you know well, I mean it's not. Well. Some people say it's not you know. You can just you know you know like fake the test out. The other part is is that now hospitals or they make so little money they don't even offer it anymore because they have no monetary incentive. So that those well, so what do you use for an assessment?
Speaker 2:we have used the right eye tool, which examines how both eyes are able to track the same cursor on a screen and the machine picks up how each eye does it. Wow, okay, and with concussions, the brain eye relay system is not always working. There's another test called eye box, where they just look and watch a video clip and the machine tracks how their eyes are participating watching the video and if the eyes basically are in sync, because often they're not. We have also used BrainScope, which the NFL and Department of Defense helped develop, which is little stickers with a headset. It's EEG based, so we're looking for abnormal brain waves. There's the QEEG. There are multiple objective tests. Impact is supposed to be objective, but if you listen to college kids, they'll tell each other when you know the answer. Count to three before you answer, because they know they're slowed down with a concussion. So we're looking for tests that college students can't outsmart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the big problem with a lot of baseline tests Plus, you know we only give them when the kids have a concussion and, to your point, we should be testing at the beginning and at the end of each year. And I think for parents out there, there's something you should demand your high schools do and I think after our son left, they started doing that and they also reduced contact by 60%. We're seeing this. You know there are trends right now that are very favorable, both towards reducing our HI and, at the same time, you know, looking at alternative modalities, like, you know, hbot to, you know to improve, you know brain health and recovery. So you know brain health and recovery.
Speaker 2:So you know, that's that. That's all amazing, but we've got to educate the athletes, the coaches, the trainers, the pediatricians to think brain injury before they pull out the prescription pad.
Speaker 1:I absolutely. If they and that's I mean we. You know, we have the traumatic encephalopathy syndrome protocols that were approved by NINDS in 2019, never validated. Four simple questions. You can put them in any assessment toolkit and at least have an indication, but without the education you point, that's true. I mean, shouldn't there be some kind of CME program out there? I mean it's not hard to say look, you check the heart, you check the lungs, you tap them on the knee. Can you please ask them some questions about their brain, because out of all of this, it is the most important heart. I mean, you have a heart and a brain right. Everything else all right, you can live without, but you cannot function in life without a brain, you know, and even a heart, you can keep going. You can be a ding-dong.
Speaker 2:I was going to say as a general surgeon. We used to have patients on the ECMO machine and the LVAD, so hearts are temporarily replaceable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you ain't replacing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's just. Yeah, I'm hoping that over time, you know, we get, you know, insurance coverage. We're putting it, we're pushing for insurance to be covering these things because in the end, to your point, it saves money. It's if we can get these kids treated, then it saves money. Product in terms of productivity in terms of, you know, life in terms of productivity in terms of life in terms of medical costs. I mean gosh, I mean this doesn't take a lot of brain size. So my question to you is why isn't H5 widely accepted when we have all this evidence that it helps? That's what we're looking for. We're just saying just do stuff that helps these kids in their brains, not drugs.
Speaker 2:For many physicians that I've run into, I call it the arrogance of ignorance. They know nothing about it, so they arrogantly say it doesn't work.
Speaker 1:That's true. I challenged the top concussion expert for Chad to uh in Canada on the issue of subcursive trauma and how that affects return to play and he's like I'm not really educated in that topic. I'm like, really, you're the top concussion doc out there, you're writing the protocols and you have no idea what subcursive trauma is. Come on, dude. But you know it's yeah, I can, I can see that. But you know it's yeah, I can, I can see that.
Speaker 2:But the return to play that the Canadian hockey team is actually responsible for developing. If you pull it out, google it, pull it out. It is physical health related, do you?
Speaker 1:get symptoms. Yeah, they want you back up.
Speaker 2:We need brain health return to play.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:Can you go back to school? Can you be in a crowded, loud room? Can you go to a restaurant, read the menu while dishes are clanging everywhere and order something? No, flip out. Can you read a paragraph, keep both of your eyes on the same word and remember what you read? Wow, if we're going to say the brain has recovered.
Speaker 1:please test the brain Right.
Speaker 2:Makes sense to me.
Speaker 1:It makes sense to me. I mean, you put it in English. You know. No wonder doctors don't like this stuff. Man, you're not making it fancy enough. No, I mean it's just yeah. I mean we've definitely got to get the word out and it's so important and this is absolutely one of the frontiers. So tell us a little bit more as we close out. Where can people find you for information? Do you have a website? Do you have any literature? Are you going to open up another clinic? What's Dr Daphne going to do?
Speaker 2:I would love to teach our protocols to other clinics and make sure that other hyperbaric technicians will follow checking on patients and that we do more other types of objective testing so that we can. You know, you want right eye data. You want brain scope data here's data using neurocatch here's. What more data do you want to show that we're actually truly treating concussions instead of medicating? And I want to see programs put into schools, put into psychiatric training and, you know, really educate across the board. As I said, teachers, athletic trainers, individual athletes, parents, you know, make everybody aware. Watch out for the cranky teenager it may not just be.
Speaker 1:I'm borrowing that one. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:No, because that was my son look it up, it's the river mead post-concussion syndrome scale that we have renamed the cranky teenager list, and every one of us has a tanky teenager at one time or another well, I've had six oh man, my youngest is over 18, so oh, gosh, man I, it is heartbreaking to know that.
Speaker 1:You know, with a little bit of help, a little bit of you know, my son talking more or or or me, just you know, just understand that this could have been an issue. I mean, of course, we wouldn't be having this conversation because I'd be sitting with him drinking beer, just keeping him on this face of this earth, cause that's all I. All I want to do is just be with my boy. But, uh, you know, this is this is what's so important and this is what people need to be aware of, that it is something that helps that it is out there. You can find hyperbaric uh treatment centers around this country. It's not just in fargo, north carolina, north north dakota. Take a look, um, dr dafty. Thank you, so you know, keep going, keep going healing with hyperbarics is our website.
Speaker 1:Okay, healing with Hyperbarics. We'll put that.
Speaker 2:And it's the name of our clinics. But I'm not pushing my clinic. I want education, awareness and treatment.
Speaker 1:Well, ma'am, you are a very, very generous woman and I can feel the presence of the Lord with you, and I so thank you for your dedication to our children yourself, for service to them and for coming on this show and making us aware of how important it is to think outside the box. You hear that medical and pharma guys Okay, and that we can help these kids and we can, you know, make sports safer and we can protect them. We should be doing that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and it's truly an honor. No problem.
Speaker 1:Nope, and my final pitch at all Remember we've got a free book online right here. Go get it on the website. Download it, give it to your mom, give it to you. If you're a grandparent, give it to your grandkids. You know, help us spread the word. We've got the Veterans Town Hall on March 28th this might be out there after that and our second annual conference on repetitive brain trauma, hosted here in Tampa September 3rd and 4th. Hope to see you all there. It's going to be a great time. We've got a lot of people coming back from last year and then 7026, dc.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to Dr Denham. I really appreciate your attention to the podcast. Like us, spread us around. Tell people that we give a dang about our children and this ends now. This whole exposing our kids to pain and suffering and mental anguish ends right now. We're going to do it. The legislation will be on our website for you to take a look at. Please support it. Write your congressman and we'll keep things moving. Thank you so much, bruce Parkman, signing out from Broken Branch. Take care and have a great day. Thank you.