Concussion Protocols For Kids
A quick take here on an article I just read. It was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association pediatric edition. They published a new set of guidelines for concussion recovery in children. By the way, the new name for concussion is mild traumatic brain injury or mTBI.
It’s very interesting because what they’re proposing is essentially a wait and see approach, where you basically remove the child from activities for a period of time, and then, as soon as they tolerate it, you start to increase activity again. That’s definitely very appropriate. However, there is so much more that can be done through different modalities to accelerate recovery.
One of the statistics the article mentions is that 20 to 30% of children will still have problems three month after a mild traumatic brain injury. So, mild injury, 20 to 30% of kids still have problems after three months. I think we can do better. We’re going to help them recover better. I’ve seen it in my own office. I’ve actually published an article, a case study about teenager with mTBI, in the Journal of Pediatric, Maternal and Family Health. You can find it here.
What we do that’s better is we can help children and adults who have suffered from mTBI them with adjustments. Adjustments do something really wonderful. They stimulate the brain and they also increase blood flow. That effect accelerates recovery and healing. There are also supplements that we can use to facilitate recovery, accelerate rebuilding of those brain cells and healing. One of the main point of these new guidelines is that treatment must be individualized. Like so many neurological conditions, there is no cookie cutter solutions.
So, if you know anyone who’s had concussion, we can help. We can help them recover faster. We can really help them get back to a higher level of function.
Click here for the new and here for the previous the guidelines published in JAMA and by the CDC.