Joseph Adams is a Senior Physical Therapist and a Clinical Instructor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Rusk Rehabilitation, NYU Langone Health. He has performed physical therapy interventions for a diverse group of patients with central and peripheral vestibular disorders and assisted the program manager in expanding NYU’s concussion center into the vestibular department. He completed two clinical research studies and coordinated four ongoing clinical research studies in the Ambulatory Care Center at Tisch Hospital at NYU, and the Concussion Center. Dr. Adams is board certified in neurological rehabilitation. His doctorate in physical therapy is from the Touro College of Health Sciences where he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program. Additionally, he is a teaching assistant in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at Columbia University.
In this interview, Joseph discusses: post-concussion syndrome from the standpoint of the amount of time that elapses after a head injury has occurred for the syndrome to be manifested; the kinds of symptoms that characterize this problem; the number of individuals in the U.S. who experience a head injury annually and the proportion affected by post-concussion syndrome; his involvement in a study of a supervised home program provided in the context of a multi-modal rehabilitation intervention to address persistent dizziness and disability; his participation in an investigation of a supervised home exercise vestibular rehabilitation aerobic training program to address persistent post-concussion symptoms; factors, such as age, gender, race, and ethnicity that can affect both the degree and the speed of recovery from post-concussion syndrome; the role a patient’s psychiatric history and family members’ psychiatric history involving conditions such as pre-morbid anxiety or depression can play in the recovery process of post-concussion syndrome; kinds of measures to determine recovery and stages when they are applied most effectively; and ways in which rehabilitation services for post-concussion syndrome can benefit from leveraging existing and emerging kinds of social media platforms and using other modalities, such as apps, wearable devices, and virtual reality technology.