Up to 3 million sports-related concussions occur each year. In the past, kids may have been told to stay out of school and to rest in a quiet, dark room until they feel better. That guidance has changed.
News4 has information families need to know as spring sports season kicks into high gear.
“Now we really are recommending that kids and teenagers get back to, certainly, physical activity and indeed some cognitive or thinking activity sooner rather than later,” said Dr. Christina Johns, a pediatric emergency physician at PM Pediatric Care.
A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine supports that idea. Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio found that limiting screen time and returning to school within a week following a concussion helped speed up the recovery process.
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“There is some more recent data that suggests that going back to school activity, so, using our brains or what we call cognitive activity, that that should happen earlier as well – that we don't necessarily need to have our kids not do any homework or not go to school,” Johns said.
For some children, it seems that their symptoms improved when they returned to the classroom, she said.
As kids recover from concussions, which type of activities they do matters, Johns said.
The study found that kids who spend a lot of time on screens, either surfing the internet or playing video games or watching TV, in the first week post-injury seemed to recover more slowly.
“One of the concerns we note is that for children who have had a concussion and who are staying home for a prolonged amount of time, is that they can feel isolated, feel left out of their activities, and that can be difficult. And then they may also be spending more time on their screens, which will add to the eyestrain, the very thing that we are trying to solve,” Johns said.
What to do if you think your child got a concussion
Concussion signs include a light sensitivity in the eyes, a headache and the person possibly not remembering what happened at the time of injury, Johns said. Nausea and vomiting are possible.
If you think your child suffered a concussion, pull them out of any sports activity immediately. Waiting even a few minutes can increase the risk of more severe symptoms, Johns said.
Then, be sure to get them checked out by a pediatrician or another health care professional.
“It’s not a diagnosis that can be made on an X-ray or on a CT scan. It’s a clinical diagnosis made by a professional,” Johns said.
There is no set time on how long kids should wait before they return to physical or cognitive activity after a concussion. Some kids can return to normal activities within a couple days; others need to wait a week, and it often depends on the severity of symptoms. Most people fully recover within a month, but it’s different for each person and can be delayed in kids who have had previous concussions.
