Taking Your Recovery Seriously

The effects of concussion on learning can be quite detrimental to a student’s ability to function properly at school or university. Similarly, many people often find it difficult to return to a work environment post-concussion.

Recent studies showed that up to 30% of all post-concussion students experienced issues returning to the classroom, with about 16% missing between 4-21 days of school.

In conjunction with a dedicated post-concussion physiotherapy rehabilitation program, a six staged “Return to Learn” protocol was proposed by the Berlin consensus statement in 2017. Each student should progress through these stages individually as symptoms allow, under the guiding care of their concussion trained Physiotherapist.

Getting back on the field, court or arena is usually the ultimate goal for all athletes recovering from a concussion. Although each athlete’s journey back is individual, there are certain protocols that will ensure this is achieved safely and effectively.

Your trained concussion Physiotherapist will develop and supervise the correct return to play timetable. Careful management of load, exertion, recovery, functional tasks and symptom aggravation will help guide the best and safest way back to playing and competing. Monitoring of objective symptom measures will ensure each progression is suitable and appropriate.

For example, the most recent position statement from the AFL Concussion Working Group Scientific Committee recommended the following (see PDF below).