Kids, parents, teachers, and coaches will be better protected from concussion in sport than ever before thanks to new Australian Concussion Guidelines for Youth and Community Sport guidelines.
The guidelines were developed in a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Sport, Sports Medicine Australia, the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians, and the Australian Physiotherapy Association. They bring together the most contemporary evidence-based information on concussion for athletes, parents, teachers, coaches and healthcare practitioners.
The Australian Institute of Sport return to sport protocols for community and youth sport include:
- Introduction of light exercise after an initial 24-48 hours of relative rest.
- Several checkpoints to be cleared prior to progression.
- Gradual reintroduction of learning and work activities. As with physical activity, cognitive stimulation such as using screens, reading, undertaking learning activities should be gradually introduced after 48 hours.
- At least 14 days symptom free (at rest) before return to contact/collision training. The temporary exacerbation of mild symptoms with exercise is acceptable, as long as the symptoms quickly resolve at the completion of exercise, and as long as the exercise-related symptoms have completely resolved before resumption of contact training.
- A minimum period of 21 days until the resumption of competitive contact/collision sport.
- Consideration of all symptom domains (physical, cognitive, emotional, fatigue, sleep) throughout the recovery process.
- Return to learn and work activities should take priority over return to sport. That is, while graduated return to learn/work activities and sport activities can occur simultaneously, the athlete should not return to full contact sport activities until they have successfully completed a fully return to learn/work activities.
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