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

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.

____________________________________________________________________

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