I got a concussion yesterday at soccer.
How soon should I go back to school?
We used to think that children should wait until they were having no symptoms
to go back to doing things like school and other activities.
To better answer this question, we designed a study across
nine centers in Canada. We recruited kids between ages 5 to 18 years
and we followed them within two days of their injury,
all the way up to a couple of months after their injury.
In this study, we found that children who went back to school within one
or two days following their concussion did better than the kids
who had waited longer until their symptoms had resolved.
It's important to get kids back doing the things they want, love, and need to do.
And that means school.
Now, what's important when we say back to school, it doesn't mean kids have to
do all the tests, exams and homeworks that they normally would be doing.
But getting back to one or two hours a day for the first day or two after the injury,
just to get back to seeing your friends, meeting your classmates
and seeing your teachers are going to help you get back to normal life.
Going back in a stepwise fashion with support from schools
and your health care providers can help kids prevent those long symptoms
that sometimes happen with concussion
and may also help prevent some of the mental health problems
that kids can have by missing out for a long period of time.