Comparing Approaches to Rehabilitation for Children and Youth with Persisting Symptoms Following Concussion

Montreal Children's Hospital partnered with the CanChild Research team to help athletes with concussion and who have post-concussion symptoms that persist for more than four weeks after an injury. This project involves determining how useful two different approaches to rehabilitation are at improving concussion symptoms and the individual's overall quality of life. The study aims to learn more about how to best treat mTBI/concussion in children and adolescents, in particular, those who have had persisting post-concussion symptoms for more than four weeks after their injury. Today, no evidence-based guidelines exist for children and adolescents who are slow to recover following a mTBI. We want to see if these persisting symptoms can be improved by using both standard rehabilitation that includes education, activity management and 'watchful waiting' and active rehabilitation where low intensity exercise is used. The general objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using an exercise based rehabilitation protocol, in comparison to a standard rehabilitation protocol, to improve post-concussion symptoms and recovery in children and adolescents who have had a mTBI and continue to experience post-concussion symptoms for four weeks or longer after the injury. The results of this study can help provide additional options for treatment for children and youth following concussion and can allow us to make better decisions about what is the best way to treat/rehabilitate this injury.

Research Team

Resources

CONCUSSION GUIDELINES FOR CHILDREN​

Funder

Fonds de Recherché Sante Quebec