The results were published in Sports Medicine, one of the most high-profile articles to come out of the NCAA-DoD Injury Diagnosis, Study, and Education Consortium.
Steve Broglio, head of the University Of Michigan Concussion Center, is a member of the CARE Consortium management group and supervises the medical research core for the project.
A Month May Need To Have Recovery From Concussion
The comprehensive study on concussions yet performed in student-athletes is reframing healing as a procedure that can take up to 28 days, rather than the recommended 14-day recovery period.
“Normal return-to-play time was previously set at 14 days meaning 50% of people recovered in that time. Our paper suggests that 28 days more fully encapsulates the recovery process. At that point, 85% of people have returned to play,” Broglio said.
This would not imply that institutions’ return-to-play policies should be revised. The research discovered that, while average response times are comparable with the traditionally stated 14 days, many sportsmen also weren’t authorized for full sports activity till one month after the accident.
“The RTP protocols are driven by clinical presentation (symptoms), not time, so they don’t need to be revised,” Broglio said.
Reaction times varied only a little across research groups, with numerous variables affecting the recovery period by up to 2 days. ADHD prescription use, males, and higher evaluation regularity all resulted in a shorter total return-to-play time. Longer recovery times were seen in individuals with more severe material signs, technique injury, and two or more previous concussions.
“Rather, coaches, parents, and athletes should reframe their expectations for return to play, in part to avoid stigmatizing concussed athletes who take longer than 14 days to recover, he said. Reframing the normal recovery time to 28 days helps eliminate unintentional social pressure from teammates, coaches, or parents who hope to see their players back on the field. If a concussed athlete takes longer than 14 days or up to a month, that’s completely normal”, he said.
In different games, many players suffer from this injury, and with the increase in the number of players, the number of cases has also shown a surge. In most cases, this injury is much normal but in some serious cases also it may take around a month for one to recover from the injury.
However, it depends on the intensity of injury and also the response from the body to that effect the recovery said one of the experts at the center after explaining the survey and status of recovery.
The experts in Sport Committee, an international committee that studies medical journals and produces patient care standards every 4 years, release trauma professional learning. This study, and others from the CARE Consortium, will most probably be discussed when the team met next year, according to Broglio, who is a part of the CISG.
“Concussion education and treatment has improved dramatically in the last two decades”, he said.
“Back when I started in concussion research 20 years ago, we’d manage these injuries with a light switch. We’d ask, ‘Do you have symptoms?’ and if the answer was no, the athlete was put back on the field. Gone are the days when concussed athletes are put back in the same day,” Broglio said. “Now, we can think of it as a dial, where we slowly progress people back into the sport. Once a player is asymptomatic, it can still take some time. We have to respect the injury and respect the recovery process.”
Indiana University’s Thomas McAllister, Barry Katz, Michelle LaPradd, and Wenxian Zhou; Michael McCrea of the Medical College of Wisconsin; and CARE Consortium investigators are among the co-authors of this survey.
