Why concussed kids may need to be sidelined for a month

Youngster are returning to the field too soon after head knocks, experts warn, amid new research on the frightening reality of concussions at all levels of sport.

Kids and young people who suffer a head knock may need to be sidelined for much longer – up to a month, according to new Adelaide research.

University of South Australia-based sports experts say there’s also new evidence to suggest concussion in young sportspeople can increase their future risk of injury by 50 per cent.

Lead researcher, UniSA’s Dr Hunter Bennett said the significant and elevated risk of injury after a concussion could suggest a longer recovery time was required for some players to better recover before returning to play.

“The current recommendation of 12 days post-concussion may not be sufficient to allow full recovery in elite under-18 footballers,” Dr Bennett said.

He said his team’s world-first study, just published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, tracked and evaluated the long-term impact of concussion and subsequent injury risk of 1455 sub-elite junior Australian rules football players.

The current recommendation of 12 days post-concussion may not be sufficient to allow full recovery, experts say.

Building on previous UniSA research, it found an approximate 1.5-fold increased risk of injury for players returning from an injury, compared to those with no injury.

Tracking injuries over a seven-season period, researchers found that football players who suffered a concussion were also about 1.5 times more likely to be reinjured in the future when compared to players who had never been injured.

This increased risk was the same as players returning from upper and lower limb injuries.

The finding comes ahead of the Australian Senate’s report into concussion injuries and follows the AFL’s announcement for a $25 million study into the long-term effects of concussions and head knocks.

In junior elite football as well as AFL and AFLW, the guidelines for concussion say that the earliest a player can return to play post-concussion is 12 days after the injury, after following the graded progression through a return-to-play program.

It may also indicate that the physical qualities impacted by concussion should be assessed more thoroughly before an athlete is cleared to return to the sport, Dr Bennett said.

“Concussion ... can lead to impairments in balance, co-ordination, reaction time and decision-making – and these impairments can increase the risk of other injuries,” he said.

Dr Bennett said a recent consensus statement on concussion in sport indicated children and teenagers may take up to four weeks to recover from a sport related concussion.

“When we know that athletes have a greater risk of another injury post a concussion, it suggests we need unique and careful rehabilitation strategies to monitor when an athlete is fully recovered and ready to return to play,” he said.