Exercise as a prescription to address post-concussion syndrome: The CJSM Blog Journal Club

September 8, 2020 by

Sports like American football are taking place in the midst of COVID19 — concussions are sure to follow

Our September 2020 edition has just published, and this edition is a particularly compelling one, full of original research.  You have to check it out.

As ever our Jr. Associate Editor Jason Zaremski M.D. has just posted his newest submission to the CJSM journal club.

While COVID19 is wreaking havoc with sports schedules around the globe, there are enough high schools and youth sports programs active that concussions will continue to remain a challenge for clinicians to treat.  And post-concussion syndrome is one particularly challenging aspect to this injury.  Dr. Zaremski walks us through original research looking at an ‘exercise prescription’ to treat post-concussion syndrome.

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Jason Zaremski MD

Gauvin-Lepage J, Friedman D, Grilli L, Sufrategui M, De Matteo C, Iverson, GL, Gagnon I. Effectiveness of an Exercise-Based Active Rehabilitation Intervention for Youth Who Are Slow to Recover After Concussion, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine: September 2020 – Volume 30 – Issue 5 – p 423-432 doi: 10.1097/JSM.0000000000000634

Introduction:  With the change of seasons, many of our readers return to covering pediatric and adolescent sport. In the Northern Hemisphere, summer vacation is over, and academics and school sports are commencing. Fall is the start of the gridiron football season and there is often a surge of concussed youth who need effective, evidence-based management.

This month the CJSM Journal Club has chosen to highlight original research on the effectiveness of exercise-based rehabilitation in 8-17 year youth who have sustained a concussion. In this age group, return to school is even more important than return to sport, and the lingering difficulties in intellectual ability, vestibular system function, memory, and/or attention can be particularly debilitating.  The authors in this new study report that between 20% and 30% of all concussed youth will endorse post-concussive symptoms (PCS) 1 month after injury. Further research into treatments and modalities aimed at reducing the frequency with which children and adolescents experience PCS is paramount.

Purpose: The authors state two aims:

1) To determine the impact of providing participants (aged 8 to 17 years) who are slow to recover after a concussion with an active rehabilitation intervention (ARI) compared to receiving standard care alone, at 2 and 6 weeks after the initiation of the ARI.

2) To investigate functional recovery 6 weeks after initiation of the ARI.

Setting: Tertiary care pediatric trauma center and associated community health care providers. Read more of this post

Filed under Concussion in Sport, Exercise Medicine, Journal Club Tagged with

CJSM July Blog Post Journal Club — A Physical Activity Vital Sign

July 9, 2020 by

Our Jr. Associate Editor and Journal Club Author, Dr. Jason Zaremski, sporting the contemporary COVID-era look

Our July 2020 issue has just published, and it’s full of many important new position statements and original research publications.

Among the latter is an investigation of a physical activity ‘vital sign’ and its association with cardiometabolic disease.

As always, our Jr. Associate Editor Jason Zaremski, MD will walk us through the study in this edition of the CJSM Blog Post Journal Club.

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Jason Zaremski, MD — Jr. Associate Editor, CJSM

Title: Nelson VR, Masocol RV, Ewing JA, Johnston S, Hale A, Widederman M, Asif IM. Association Between a Physical Activity Vital Sign and Cardiometabolic Disease in High-Risk Patients. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine: July 2020 – Volume 30 – Issue 4 – p 348-352. doi: 10.1097/JSM.0000000000000588.

Introduction:  The challenges posed by the COVID pandemic are legion.  A less publicized aspect of ‘stay home’ or ‘shelter-in-place’ orders has been the reduction in physical activity in all ages. This new publication by Nelson VR et al. examining a physical activity vital sign (PVS) arrives in the pages of CJSM at just the right time.

Physical inactivity is known to be associated with increased rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and increased mortality rates. The ability of physicians to potentially screen patients using efficient means during clinical encounters could be extremely helpful to improve measures of all cause morbidity and mortality of patients.

This month’s journal club focuses on this interesting new study assessing the use of a PAVS and its correlation with cardiometabolic markers and disease in medically complex patient population in a large family medicine clinic in South Carolina. Read more of this post

Filed under Exercise Medicine, Journal Club

Prescribed Exercise for Managing Concussions — the CJSM Blog Journal Club

September 3, 2019 by

Our Editor-in-Chief Chris Hughes (R) and Jr. Assoc. Editor Jason Zaremski (L) taking a brief spell from their busy lives.

Our fifth edition of the year went live at the beginning of September, and it’s a special one:  we have devoted the entire issue to the theme of pediatric athletes.

Our guest editor Alison Brooks M.D., M.P.H. has assembled an impressive line up of authors, including John Leddy M.D. of SUNY Buffalo who is the lead on an interesting new study demonstrating the benefits of prescribed aerobic exercise in the recovery of adolescent males from sport-related concussion.

Our Jr. Assoc. Editor Jason Zaremski M.D. has submitted another insightful journal club piece looking at the details of Dr. Leddy’s study.

As fall approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern, sports-related concussions will continue to show up in a variety of sports our young athletes play.  This work from Dr. Leddy et al. (including both this new study and his CJSM 2018 study) will be transformative in the way we manage our athletes.

Enjoy the original research paper itself (here) and the journal club article (below).

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Jason Zaremski M.D., Junior Associate Editor CJSM

Title:

Leddy JJ, et al. A Preliminary Study of the Effect of Early Aerobic Exercise Treatment for Sport-Related Concussion in Males. Clin J Sport Med 2019 29(5):353-360.

Introduction:  

As the temperature begins to change and we enter the fall season, millions of student-athletes have returned to school and sport. With such large participation numbers in sport inevitably comes a rise in injury. One of these injuries is sports related concussions (SRC). In recent years, our overall knowledge of how to diagnose, manage, and treat SRC has improved thanks to the ever-growing research in this area. However, one aspect that is continuing to evolve is the timing and intensity of physical activity after sustaining a SRC. While rest (cognitive and physical) has been a mainstay of treatment in the past, there is a growing body of research that indicates physical activity may accelerate recovery versus physical rest only. Thus, it is our pleasure to provide this month’s CJSM Journal Club by reviewing Leddy and colleagues’ new work on the effects of early aerobic exercise as a potential treatment for SRC in adolescent males.

Purpose/Hypothesis(es):

The primary purposes of this research is to compare early subthreshold aerobic exercise (STAE) versus prescribed rest and days to recovery from concussion for adolescent males. The authors hypothesized that STAE would reduce the days to recovery after treatment prescription. Read more of this post

Filed under Concussion in Sport, Exercise Medicine, Journal Club, Physical activity interventions, Youth Sport

Five Questions with Dr. Nick Peirce: The Role of Physical Activity and Sport in Mental Health

July 24, 2018 by 1 Comment

Dr. Nick Peirce, lead on the FSEM team producing recent exercise and mental health position statement.

Reduce depression and cognitive decline by up to 30% with regular exercise?  Can this be so?

For those of us ‘in the know’ in this field of sport and exercise medicine, that statement may seem understood.  But medical research translating to broadly held knowledge which then may lead to meaningful change:  well, we ALL know how rare that situation can be.  The management of recent concussion events in the FIFA World Cup reminds us of the difficulty of knowledge translation: there were instances where it seemed as if we were ‘partying like it’s 1999’ so to speak.

Reviews of the current state of evidence-based knowledge about medically important findings continue to be of vital importance in ‘getting the word out’.  In that spirit, we couldn’t be happier to see the recent position statement released by one of our partner societies, the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (UK) : The Role of Physical Activity and Sport in Mental Health.

The lead on the team of authors which produced this FSEM UK Position Statement is Dr. Nick Peirce, Chief Medical Officer of the England and Wales Cricket Board.  We wanted to pick his brain to get a bit more of the background work which resulted in this statement.  The summer Cricket season has kept Dr. Peirce occupied above and beyond his usual level of busyness.  During a gap between competitions, CJSM caught up with him — the results of our interview can be found here.

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1. CJSM: We want to discuss the new FSEM statement on the role of physical activity and sport in mental health, but first can you tell us a bit about yourself: your background as a sports medicine clinician and your involvement with FSEM?

NP: I have been involved in Sports and Exercise medicine for over 20 years having worked across a large number of Olympic and Professional sports, including Leading Sports Medicine for English Institute of Sport (EIS) at the busiest site in the country at Loughborough University, the Davis Cup team and the football team Nottingham Forest. I am a Hospital Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine in the NHS and have been Chief Medical Officer for the England Cricket for the more than 10 years. I have been involved in many of the Sports Societies and for 3 years have sat on the Faculty (FSEM), although professional sport commitments make this challenging.

2. CJSM: How did you become involved with this particular FSEM project on mental health – was there a large team involved in the production of this project? Was FSEM the only organization involved in the drafting of this document? Read more of this post

Filed under Exercise Medicine, Five Questions, General Interest Tagged with

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