Welcome to the FAKTR Podcast where we talk about the stuff they didn't teach you in school. How to grow your practice, refine your clinical skills and get better results for your patients. We're here to help you navigate the real world challenges of being a healthcare provider. From delivering top notch patient care to running a business that doesn't run you into the ground. Whether you're fresh out of school or scaling your practice, we're diving into effective, cutting edge treatments to get patients better faster. We'll also talk about business strategies and tactics to help you work smarter and not harder, and the mindset shifts required to thrive as a top performer in your field so you can build a career you love without burning out. If you're ready to learn what works and what doesn't from leading experts, industry innovators and respected clinicians across a wide range of specialties, you're in the right place, my friend. Let's dive in.

Welcome back to the FAKTR Podcast where we explore the science systems and strategies that push human performance forward. Forward. My name is Jessica Riddle. I'm your host. Welcome and thank you for listening. If you've been one of our listeners for a while, you might remember episode 112, the future of Sports Medicine, Brain Training with Neurofeedback with Dr. Kevin Butterfield. That episode quickly became one of our most streamed shows and the feedback has been incredible.

So we invited Dr. Butterfield back to take the conversation even deeper. In this new two part series, we're unpacking what really happens inside the athlete's brain, how concussions and trauma disrupt neural communication and how neurofeedback is changing everything we thought we knew about recovery, focus and performance. In Today's episode part one, Dr. Butterfield breaks down what neurofeedback actually is, why traditional imaging often misses the mark, and how clinicians can begin integrating brain based training into sports medicine and rehab practice. Lets dive in.

Today we're going to talk about neurofeedback in sports. I've been eyeball deep in sports from professional level all the way down to youth level and as you can see by this picture, this impact is going to hurt probably both of them. This is helmets were never were designed to prevent concussions. Their sole purpose is to prevent skull fractures and for the most part they do that. I was born in the area of Evel Knievel, so I used to ride bike BMX bikes with my friends down these steep hills trying to jump garbage cans and obviously if you didn't make it and you crash and you got knocked out. We just move them on the side so we can continue jumping. Things have come a long way since then. I mean, with youth sports, especially if you get knocked out cold on the field, they come out with smelling salts, get you back to the sideline to count fingers.

How many fingers am I holding up? And the kid says, all of them. He says, close enough and I'll get back in there. That is a bad choice. But that's all we knew what to do. Now it's a little different. As far as technology has advanced so much in 50 years, we know exactly what's going on the brain and where, where it struggles, where the concussion is affecting it. So that's what we're going to go over today. Here's a disclaimer for you.

I'm not going to read it all verbatim, but this is just for educational purposes only. We're not offering medical advice or diagnosing anything. That's it in a nutshell. You guys can read that at your leisure. Now, the takeaways of this, I want you guys to be able to recognize and explain the long, long term neurologic effects of concussions and the impact that it has an athletes well beyond the initial injury, which could be months or years afterwards, you could still be suffering. Most people say in the western medicine area say that concussions usually go away. The initial symptoms usually do go away, but you're always left feeling different. Something's off.