Optimize Sports Chiropractic

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Optimize Sports Chiropractic Through comprehensive neuromusculoskeletal (neuro-orthopedic) evaluation, diagnosis and individualiz

At Optimize Sports Chiropractic, we take a holistic approach to health care, with a strong focus on the entire neuromusculoskeletal system, which includes the spine, the extremities (e.g. foot/ankle, knee, shoulder), joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and the nervous system.
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Through comprehensive neuromusculoskeletal (neuro-orthopedic) evaluation, diagnosis and individualized multi-modal management, Optimize Sports Chiropractic is dedicated to help you achieve optimal Movement, Function, Performance and Health.

🧠 Why do some people recover quickly after a concussion or viral illness, while others continue to struggle for months—o...
10/08/2026

🧠 Why do some people recover quickly after a concussion or viral illness, while others continue to struggle for months—or even years?

Emerging research points to one important piece of the puzzle: persistent neuroinflammation.

Following a concussion, COVID-19, or other physiological stressors, the brain’s immune cells (called microglia) become activated to help repair damaged tissue. Normally, this response settles once healing is complete.

However, in some people, these immune cells may remain activated, leading to ongoing inflammation that can disrupt normal brain function.

This may contribute to symptoms such as:
• Brain fog
• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Light sensitivity
• Poor memory and concentration
• Sleep disturbance
• Exercise intolerance
• Dysautonomia (including some cases of POTS)

Neuroinflammation may also affect important brain networks—including the limbic system, brainstem, and cerebellum—which help regulate memory, emotion, autonomic function, balance, eye movements, and motor learning.

One important consequence is that inflammation can interfere with neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself. This means that even when patients are doing the “right” rehabilitation exercises, progress may be slower because the brain is not in an optimal environment for learning and recovery.

Emerging research also suggests that photobiomodulation (low-level laser therapy) may help reduce neuroinflammation, improve mitochondrial function, increase ATP production, and support neuroplasticity. While the laboratory evidence is promising, larger, high-quality clinical trials are still needed to determine the best treatment protocols and long-term outcomes.

Recovery is rarely about treating one symptom in isolation. It often requires addressing the underlying biology while combining targeted rehabilitation to help the brain recover more effectively.

04/08/2026

Persistent symptoms aren’t always about damaged tissues—and the Central Sensitisation Inventory (CSI) doesn’t directly measure “central sensitisation.”

Despite its name, the CSI is a questionnaire that measures the burden of symptoms commonly seen in people with persistent pain and central sensitivity syndromes. Research consistently shows that higher CSI scores are more strongly associated with anxiety, stress, poor sleep, pain catastrophising, fear of movement and disability than with direct laboratory measures of central sensitisation.

So what does that mean clinically?

The answer may lie in the brain’s limbic system.

The amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, insula, anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex work together to evaluate threat, regulate stress, process emotions, monitor the body’s internal state and influence pain. When these networks become dysregulated after injury, persistent stress or chronic pain, patients may experience amplified pain, fatigue, dizziness, brain fog, sleep disturbance and increased sensitivity—even when ongoing tissue damage is minimal.

Importantly, this does not mean symptoms are “all in the mind.” These are measurable neurobiological changes involving the brain, autonomic nervous system and immune-endocrine systems.

A high CSI score should therefore be viewed as a sign of increased symptom complexity rather than proof of central sensitisation. It reminds clinicians to consider the whole person—including biological, psychological and social contributors—when assessing and managing persistent symptoms.

Persistent symptoms aren’t always about damaged tissues—and the Central Sensitisation Inventory (CSI) doesn’t directly m...
03/08/2026

Persistent symptoms aren’t always about damaged tissues—and the Central Sensitisation Inventory (CSI) doesn’t directly measure “central sensitisation.”

Despite its name, the CSI is a questionnaire that measures the burden of symptoms commonly seen in people with persistent pain and central sensitivity syndromes. Research consistently shows that higher CSI scores are more strongly associated with anxiety, stress, poor sleep, pain catastrophising, fear of movement and disability than with direct laboratory measures of central sensitisation.

So what does that mean clinically?

The answer may lie in the brain’s limbic system.

The amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, insula, anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex work together to evaluate threat, regulate stress, process emotions, monitor the body’s internal state and influence pain. When these networks become dysregulated after injury, persistent stress or chronic symptoms, patients may experience amplified pain, fatigue, dizziness, brain fog, sleep disturbance and increased sensitivity—even when ongoing tissue damage is minimal.

Importantly, this does not mean symptoms are “all in the mind.” These are measurable neurobiological changes involving the brain, autonomic nervous system and immune-endocrine systems.

A high CSI score should therefore be viewed as a sign of increased symptom complexity rather than proof of central sensitisation. It reminds clinicians to consider the whole person—including biological, psychological and social contributors—when assessing and managing persistent symptoms.

28/07/2026

“I’m dizzy” tells you almost nothing. 

Lightheaded, spinning, rocking, pulling, foggy — these are five different perceptual experiences, and they point to five different parts of the nervous system: autonomic, peripheral vestibular, central vestibular, cervical, and multisensory/limbic. 

In persistent post-concussion syndrome, these systems rarely fail alone. A patient can have autonomic dysregulation, otolithic dysfunction, cervical proprioceptive mismatch, and visual dependence all at once — which is exactly why symptom-matched treatment (“do vestibular rehab because the patient is dizzy”) so often stalls or backfires. 

Objective testing — VOG/VNG, positional testing, neuro-visual testing, tilt table, posturography, cervical exam, — is what lets you match treatment to mechanism instead of guessing from a single vague word. 

Watch the reel for the breakdown

“I’m dizzy” tells you almost nothing.  Lightheaded, spinning, rocking, pulling, foggy — these are five different percept...
27/07/2026

“I’m dizzy” tells you almost nothing. 

Lightheaded, spinning, rocking, pulling, foggy — these are five different perceptual experiences, and they point to five different parts of the nervous system: autonomic, peripheral vestibular, central vestibular, cervical, and multisensory/limbic. 

In persistent post-concussion syndrome, these systems rarely fail alone. A patient can have autonomic dysregulation, otolithic dysfunction, cervical proprioceptive mismatch, and visual dependence all at once — which is exactly why symptom-matched treatment (“do vestibular rehab because the patient is dizzy”) so often stalls or backfires. 

Objective testing — VOG/VNG, positional testing, neuro-visual testing, tilt table, posturography, cervical exam, — is what lets you match treatment to mechanism instead of guessing from a single vague word. 

Swipe through for the breakdown

21/07/2026

SCAT6 and SCOAT6 are the standardised backbone of concussion assessment — but they were built as triage tools, not diagnostic ceilings. 

SCAT6 does its best work in the first 72 hours.
SCOAT6 extends that into the subacute window with vestibular-ocular, mental health, sleep, and cervical screening layered on.
Even so, these remain screening measures: a brief flag, not a quantified diagnosis. 

For persistent post-concussion symptoms, the domains that actually explain why someone isn’t recovering — autonomic dysfunction, oculomotor/vestibular pathology, neuro-visual processing, motor coordination, cervicogenic contribution, neuroinflammation — need objective, diagnostic-grade testing beyond what a screening checklist can capture. 

A normal SCOAT6 doesn’t mean resolved. It means the screen didn’t catch it. 

Save this for your next PPCS case review, and tag a friend or colleague who needs the reminder that the standardised tools are the floor — not the finish line.

SCAT6 and SCOAT6 are the standardised backbone of concussion assessment — but they were built as triage tools, not diagn...
20/07/2026

SCAT6 and SCOAT6 are the standardised backbone of concussion assessment — but they were built as triage tools, not diagnostic ceilings. 

SCAT6 does its best work in the first 72 hours.
SCOAT6 extends that into the subacute window with vestibular-ocular, mental health, sleep, and cervical screening layered on.
Even so, these remain screening measures: a brief flag, not a quantified diagnosis. 

For persistent post-concussion symptoms, the domains that actually explain why someone isn’t recovering — autonomic dysfunction, oculomotor/vestibular pathology, neuro-visual processing, motor coordination, cervicogenic contribution, neuroinflammation — need objective, diagnostic-grade testing beyond what a screening checklist can capture. 

A normal SCOAT6 doesn’t mean resolved. It means the screen didn’t catch it. 

Save this for your next PPCS case review, and tag a friend or colleague who needs the reminder that the standardised tools are the floor — not the finish line.

14/07/2026

Concussion. Long COVID. Trauma. Three completely different injuries — and yet the symptom picture so often looks the same: fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, mood changes, a nervous system stuck in overdrive.

Why? Because they all converge on the same circuit — the limbic system. Amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, insula, and their connection to the prefrontal cortex and brainstem, working together to appraise threat, consolidate memory, and regulate the autonomic nervous system.

When that circuit is disrupted — by neuroinflammation, structural change, or threat-conditioning — the result is the same downstream pattern regardless of the original insult: sensitized threat detection, impaired top-down regulation, and autonomic dysregulation.

Watch the reel for the neuroscience behind why PPCS, Long COVID, and trauma-history so often present the same way — and what that means for how we rehab them.

Concussion. Long COVID. Trauma. Three completely different injuries — and yet the symptom picture so often looks the sam...
13/07/2026

Concussion. Long COVID. Trauma. Three completely different injuries — and yet the symptom picture so often looks the same: fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, mood changes, a nervous system stuck in overdrive.

Why? Because they all converge on the same circuit — the limbic system. Amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, insula, and their connection to the prefrontal cortex and brainstem, working together to appraise threat, consolidate memory, and regulate the autonomic nervous system.

When that circuit is disrupted — by neuroinflammation, structural change, or threat-conditioning — the result is the same downstream pattern regardless of the original insult: sensitized threat detection, impaired top-down regulation, and autonomic dysregulation.

Swipe through for the neuroscience behind why PPCS, Long COVID, and trauma-history so often present the same way — and what that means for how we rehab them.

07/07/2026

Why does your body feel like it’s running on empty — even after “rest”? 🔋⚡

ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, Long COVID, Post-Viral Syndrome and POTS often get treated as separate, mysterious conditions. But a growing body of research points to a shared biological story underneath them: chronic neuroinflammation, overactive microglia (the brain’s immune cells), and mitochondria that simply can’t keep up with energy demand.

One of the most exciting recent findings? Brain inflammation alone — without any exercise — can shut down muscle mitochondria via an IL-6 signalling pathway. That’s a real physiological explanation for post-exertional malaise, not a motivation issue.

Swipe through to see how this all connects — and where photobiomodulation (low-level light therapy) may fit in as an emerging, low-risk therapeutic option, especially visible light (violet, green and red) wavelengths that directly support mitochondrial energy production.

This is general education, not medical advice — always discuss therapies with your treating clinician.

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720 Nicholson Street
Fitzroy North, VIC
3068

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