Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP directs Concussion Center in St. Louis. He evaluates and treats concussion and post-concussion syndrome. He pays particular attention to injuries that occurred without loss of consciousness and were dismissed at the time. He is an anesthesiologist who specialized in pediatric neuroanesthesia.
Why does an anesthesiologist treat concussion?
Anesthesiology is not the specialty people expect to find at a concussion clinic. So it is worth saying what the training actually involves. A neuroanesthesiologist’s job is to keep a brain safe while it is under physiological stress. That means managing cerebral perfusion (blood flow to the brain), intracranial pressure, oxygenation and autoregulation minute by minute, in a patient who cannot report symptoms.
Doing that in children is the demanding version of it. Pediatric physiology leaves far less margin. The clinician works almost entirely from objective signals rather than from what the patient says.
That is a useful background for post-concussive care. There, the central problems are also physiological: blood flow, autonomic instability, sleep architecture, headache, and how the brain tolerates load. It is also a habit worth having in a field where patients are routinely disbelieved: reading objective signals rather than deciding in advance which reported symptoms to credit.
It does not make him a neurologist. This site does not claim otherwise. Where a presentation calls for neurology, neurosurgery or inpatient rehabilitation, we say so and help you get there.
Why does MoCA rater certification matter after a concussion?
Dr. Padda is a certified rater for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). That matters here specifically. Cognitive screening after concussion is only as good as the person giving it. Formal rater certification means the test is scored to standard, not approximated. When a claim or a return-to-work decision turns on cognitive findings, the difference is material.
Board certifications
- Diplomate, American Board of Anesthesiology
- Diplomate, American Board of Pain Medicine
- Diplomate, American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians (ABIPP)
- Diplomate, American Board of Addiction Medicine
- Diplomate, American Board of Obesity Medicine
Additional certification
- Fellow of Interventional Pain Physicians (FIPP)
- MoCA Certified Rater (Montreal Cognitive Assessment)
- Diplomate, Metabolic Health Practitioner
- Competency Certification in Regenerative Medicine in Interventional Pain Management (2024)
- Certified Physician Executive (CPE)
How can I verify Dr. Padda’s credentials?
Credentials are worth stating only if they can be checked. NPI 1427035955; Missouri medical license MD 100572. You can verify both through the NPI Registry and the Missouri Division of Professional Registration, without going through us.
Published research. His peer-reviewed record is registered under ORCID 0009-0001-0166-3186 and indexed at PubMed, OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar. His biographical record is Wikidata Q141049117.
Find Dr. Padda Online
Why does a pain and metabolic background matter in concussion care?
Persistent post-concussion symptoms are rarely a single problem. Headache, disrupted sleep, autonomic instability and cognitive fog interact. Metabolic conditions are common in adult injury patients: diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea, vascular disease. They affect recovery, yet they are routinely excluded from the athlete studies the field is built on.
Concussion care for a 52-year-old injured in a rear-end collision is a different clinical problem from concussion care for a 19-year-old wide receiver. Treating it as the same problem is why many adult patients are told there is nothing more to do.
Evaluations are conducted personally.
Frequently asked questions
What doctor treats traumatic brain injury?
At Concussion Center, Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP evaluates and treats concussion and post-concussion syndrome. He is an anesthesiologist who specialized in pediatric neuroanesthesia. He is board certified in anesthesiology and pain medicine. He is also a certified rater for the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. He is not a neurologist. When a case calls for neurology, neurosurgery or inpatient rehabilitation, we say so and help you get there.
Does TBI fall under neurology?
Neurology is one part of brain injury care. When a case calls for it, we say so and help you get there. But the central problems after a concussion are also physiological: blood flow, autonomic instability, sleep, headache and how the brain tolerates load. Neuroanesthesia is the work of keeping a brain safe under that kind of stress. That is why it is useful background here.