A session of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) may help improve concussion-related symptoms, according to two recently published case reports.

The reports, published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, document treatment of a 27-year-old man following a snowboarding accident without wearing a helmet, and a 16-year-old girl who experienced a head-to-head collision.

According to a media release from the American Osteopathic Association, the 27-year-old patient experienced headache, nausea, dizziness, and tinnitus during the days after the fall. After one 25-minute OMT session, the patient reported the dizziness, tinnitus and nausea had resolved and his scores on the Sensory Organization Test (SOT), a computerized measure of balance, improved from 76 before treatment to 81 after treatment.

The study’s authors evaluated the 16-year-old girl using the Initial Concussion Symptom Score (CSS), which measures progression of symptoms on a scale of 0 to 144, and the Balanced Error Scoring System (BESS), a 0 to 30 scale measuring vestibular dysfunction. On the day after her first OMT treatment, her CSS decreased from 53 to 22 and her BESS improved from 22 to 17. At the end of six treatments, her CSS was 0 and BESS dropped to 14, per the release.

“These cases are consistent with the clinical experiences of osteopathic physicians who use OMT as part of a multidisciplinary approach to concussion,” says Naresh Rao, an osteopathic sports medicine physician who will be the team physician for USA Water Polo in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympics, in the release.

“While the mechanisms of healing are not well understood with concussion, formal studies measuring OMT’s impact on recovery and quality of life are much needed to demonstrate its efficacy as a viable therapy where there are very limited therapies to date,” Rao adds.

[Source(s): American Osteopathic Association, Business Wire]